^LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.! 

i. ^ — : :~ I 

I ^34£,4l^' I 

I UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. 



REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 



Bg tfje Same Author. 
Abbotfs Paragraph Histories. 



THE UNITED STATES from the 
Discovery of the Continent to the 
Present Time. 

THE AMERICAN REVOLU- 
TION. 



Boston : Roberts Brothers. 1876. 



REVOLUTIONARY 
TI M ES: 

SKETCHES OF OUR COUNTRY, 

ITS PEOPLE, AND 

THEIR WAYS, 



By EDWARD ABBOTT. 




BOSTON: 

ROBERTS BROTHERS. 

1876. 



Copyright, 1876, 
By Edward Abbott. 




Cambridge : 
Press of yo/in IVilson &^ Son. 



A PREFATORY NOTE. 



To sketch the being and doing of a consider- 
able people, occupying an extended territory, 
at a momentous period, and all within the com- 
pass of two hundred pages, is an undertaking 
of which too much will not be expected by 
the considerate reader. Such a sketch must 
necessarily confine itself to the surface of 
things, and then can only touch upon a few 
points that are prominent. For further par- 
ticulars, inquiry must be made of other works, 
whose scope is broader and purpose deeper, 
a partial enumeration of which will be found 
at the end of the volume. I have here but 
filled a note-book with rough and scattered 
memoranda. My hope is that it may render 
some such humble service as that of the 



VI A PREFATORY NOTE. 

country guide-board, directing those whose 
eye it catches into pleasant ways beyond. 

I am indebted to Hon. Charles Francis 
Adams and to Mr. Samuel Adams Drake 
for their kind permission respectively to 
make the extracts which appear from the 
" Familiar Letters of John Adams and 
his Wife," and from " Old Landmarks of 
Boston." And to Mr. Drake my grateful 
acknowledgments are further due for his 
friendly aid in the critical revision of the 
proofs. 

E. A. 

Cambridge, Mass., 

April 25, 1876. 



CONTENTS. 



I. Political Geography. 

A Map of the United States in 1776. — The Capitals. — 
Principal Towns. — Population. — Products. — The 
Interior. — The Pacific Coast. — Government. . 11 

II. Cities and Towns. 

Tendency to Rural Population. — Five "Self-centred" 
Cities. — Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania Towns. — 
New York. — Boston. — New England Towns. — Bal- 
timore and Annapolis. — Charleston, S.C. — Sa- 
vannah, etc 19 

III. Public Communications. 

Narrative of Elkanah Watson. — Roads. — The Stage- 
coach. — Coasters. — Military Transportation. — The 
Mails. — A Letter Carrier. — The Country Post-of- 
fice 45 

IV. Some General Features of Character 

AND Life. 

The Military Coloring. — New England Traits. — 
Sectional Contrasts. — Wealth. — MoraHty. — Social 
Troubles. — A " Statement. " — Punishments. — 
"Strong Licker." — Slavery. — Dress and the Fash- 
ions. — Arms and Ammunition. — Amusements. — 



CONTENTS. 



A Concert. — The Theatre. — Josiah Quincy's Opin- 
ion. — Vote of Congress. — Anecdote of Lafayette. — 
Dancing and Public Balls. — Lafayette and the Balti- 
more Ladies. — Patriotic Sentiment. — A Patriotic 
Barber 59 

V. Domestic Concerns. 

The Self-contained Home. — An Old House. — A 
Domestic Interior. — The Kitchen. — Children. — 
Courtship and Marriage. — A Romantic Proposal. 

— A Quaint Wedding Notice. — John Hancock and 
Dorothy Q. — Burials and Funerals. — An Old Ward- 
robe. — Household Furniture. — Food. — Prices. — 
Regulation of Prices. — Prices in Boston and Pliil- 
adelphia. — Money and the Currency. ... 80 

VI. Education. 

Schools and Colleges. — Dartmouth in its Infancy — 
Honorary Degrees. — Harvard and Washington's 
"LL.D." — Inten-uptions by the War. — Educated 
Men in the Continental Congress. — Professional 
Schools. — A " Morning School " in Boston. . 102 

VII. Literature. 

General Traits of the Period. — Statesmen in Litera- 
ture, Washington, Jefferson, etc. — Charles Thompson. 

— The Bartrams. — Ballad Literature. — Du Simi- 
tiere and Freneau. — Timothy Dvvight and the Yale 
" Quartette." — John Tmmbull. — A Philadelphia 
Magazine. — Thomas Paine. — Other Writers. — Phil- 
lis Wheatley. — Libraries. — An Old Bookstore, etc. — 
The Author his own Publisher. — Publication of " The 
Conquest of Canaan." 114 



CONTENTS. 



^ 



VIII. The Press. 

General Characteristics of the Newspapers. — No "Jour- 
nalism." — Boston Papers. — Isaiah Thomas and the 
Massachusetts Spy. — Other Massachusetts Papers. — 
The New England Chronicle for July 4, 1776. — Other 
Papers in New England. — The New York Press. — 
The Press in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the 
Southern States. — Scarcity of Paper. — The Rag- 
man. — Subscription Rates 132 

IX. The Churches and the Clergy. 

A Religious People. — Rank of the Denominations. — 

— Eminent Ministers. — Influence of the Clergy. — 
Dr. Emmons, of Franklin. — Salaries. — The Old Meet- 
ing-house. — Church Music. — The Sabba'-Day House. 

— Public Religious Days. — Washington and "Close 
Communion." — Old Historic Churches. . . 145 

X. Professions and Trades. 

The Agricultural Interest. — General Montgomery's Farm. 

— Farm Life. — Wages. — Manufactures. — The 
Country Store — Lawyers. — The " Moot " Society in 
New York. — Famous Painters. — Copley, Peale, and 
Others 161 

XI. The Men and Women of the Revolu- 
tion. 

The Military Group. — : Washington and his Generals. — 
The Foreign Officers. — The Civil Group. — Franklin 
and the Signers of the Declaration. — Mrs. Mercy 
Warren. — Mrs. General Knox. — Mrs. General Greene. 

— Mrs. Mary Draper. — The Mother of Washington. — 
The Girls of Kinderhook. — A Sisterly Letter. — A 
Georgia Maiden 171 



lo CONTENTS. 



XII. Odds and Ends. 

Old Families. — The Draytons. — The Fairfaxes. — 
The Small -pox. — Humors of its Treatment. — The 
Weather. — Duelling. — ' ' The Hard Winter." — The 
"Dark Day." — The Prospect as viewed from 
1776 184 



Appendix. 



List of Works consulted in the Preparation of this 
Book. — List of Works, including many of Great 
Rarity, relating to the Subject 199 



Index 205 



REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 



I. 

POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

At the time of the American Revolution, 
the civilized settlements of the country were 
confined almost exclusively to a narrow strip 
of territory along the Atlantic coast. A map 
of the United States, as they were at the 
Declaration of Independence, in 1776, pre- 
sents very striking contrasts to a map of 
the same at the present day. Such a map, 
in the first place, undertakes to show only 
about one-third of the breadth of the conti- 
nent, the Mississippi River being the extreme 
western boundary of the field under survey. 
The great lakes are in their places, of course ; 
and the great rivers and other distinguishing 
features of the physical geography have un- 
dergone no marked change. But the political 
geography is strangely different. Now the 



12 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

country lies east and west, stretching from 
ocean to ocean, embracing the great lakes 
above and washed by the great Gulf below ; 
then it lay north and south, a narrow margin, 
like a thin wave rolled up from the great sea. 
Civilization had but gilded the edge of the 
continent, and brightened only here and there 
a spot in the interior. If we conceive of our 
imaginary map as lightened where the country 
is settled and darkened where it is not, then 
by far the greater part of it is dark. There 
is the light strip along the coast from New 
Brunswick to the borders of what is now 
Florida. There is a dash of white along the 
St. Lawrence River, and another about the 
mouth of the Mississippi ; and there are light 
spots in the interior, where are now Pittsburg, 
St. Louis, and Knoxville. There are settle- 
ments also at Niagara and Detroit, and one 
or two others in the valley of the Ohio. But 
Maine is only a province of Massachusetts, 
and Vermont has not yet emerged from be- 
tween New Hampshire and New York. From 
the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, and from 
the Gulf to the lakes, the wilderness is almost 



POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



13 



wholly unbroken. The Miamis, the Shawnees, 
the Delawares, the Cherokees, the Creeks, the 
Choctaws, and others of the Indian tribes, are 
in possession. 

The thirteen original Colonies, which in 1776 
resolved themselves into the United States' of 
America, were as follows : — 



Colonies. 






Capitals. 


New Hampshire . 
Massachusetts . . 




. Exeter. 
. Boston. 


Rhode Island 
Connecticut . . 






. Providence and Newport. 
. Hartford and New Haven 


New York . . 






. New York. 


New Jersey . . 
Pennsylvania. 
Delaware . . 






. Amboy. 
. Philadelphia. 
. . Newcastle. 


Maryland . . 
Virginia . . 
North Carolina 






. . Annapolis. 
. . Williamsburg. 
. . Newbern. 


South Carolina 






, . Charleston. 


Georgia . . 






. . Savannah. 



The names of these capitals are of course 
the prominent names upon the maps of the 
time. Taking heavy type as a token of rank, 
the places of first importance are Philadel- 
phia, New York, and Boston ; then come 



14 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

Portsmouth, in New Hampshire ; Providence, 
in Rhode Island ; Hartford, in Connecticut ; 
Baltimore and Annapolis, in Maryland ; New- 
bern, in North Carolina ; Charleston (or 
Charles/^z£/;?, as it was commonly called), in 
South Carolina ; and Savannah, in Georgia : 
while in a third rank seem to stand Falmouth 
(now Portland), in Maine ; Cambridge and 
Plymouth, in Massachusetts ; Lancaster and 
Reading, in Pennsylvania ; Newcastle, in 
Delaware ; Norfolk, in Virginia ; and Au- 
gusta, in Georgia. Judging from a hasty 
glance, several score of towns are named in 
Massachusetts, less than twenty in New Jer- 
sey, about thirty in Virginia, and towards 
forty in South Carolina ; these, however, be- 
ing by no means all. 

Outside of these the larger towns, the col- 
onists were still struggling more or less with 
the wilderness, except where a kindly soil had 
surrendered itself more quickly to discipline 
and culture. Little by little the settlers were 
.pushing out from the centres into the regions 
beyond. This was noticeably the case in 
Maine and in New Hampshire. The Isles 



POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY. 1 5 

of Shoals already had a hardy population, 
which, however, was temporarily ejected dur- 
ing the Revolution for unpatriotic conduct. 
Vermont, as we have before intimated, was 
not ; its territory being an object of conten- 
tion between New York and New Hamp- 
shire. In Massachusetts, the most populous 
of the Colonies, 300,000 people had settled 
into a thrifty, prosperous, and placid life. 
Rhode Island had a population of about 
60,000, devoted to the raising of general prod- 
uce, with some attempts at tobacco culture. 
New York, with a population of 164,000, had 
pushed out into the Mohawk Valley ; and one 
of the most inviting of the Pennsylvania 
settlements was that in the valley of Wyo- 
ming. New Jersey made a less favorable im- 
pression upon some beholders. The farms 
of Maryland again were proverbially fine, 
though the province was not thickly settled. 
The peach culture had been begun in Virginia. 
Daniel Boone was just setting out for Ken- 
tucky at the head of an enterprising company 
of pioneers. The Carolinas, naturally marked 
by differences of soil and climate, were already 



l6 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

showing some contrasts in temper and habit. 
North Carolina enjoyed the infusion of a 
considerable Presbyterian element ; while in 
South Carolina, years before, a colony from 
Massachusetts had found a home, which, in a' 
filial spirit, they called Dorchester. Florida 
was in the hands of the English, but in a very 
unsettled condition ; and the Spanish held 
Louisiana. 

Ten years before this time, it had been 
written by an intelligent observer : * " Every 
Colony in America seems to have, as it were, 
a staple commodity peculiar to itself : as 
Canada, the fur ; Massachusetts Bay, fish ; 
Connecticut, lumber ; New York and Penn- 
sylvania, wheat ; Virginia and Maryland, 
tobacco ; North Carolina, pitch and tar ; 
South Carolina, rice and indigo ; Georgia, 
rice and silk." 

The colonization of the West was yet a 
dream of the Anglo-Americans, the designs 
of France and Spain standing in the way of 
its fulfilment. The present great state of 
Ohio had not a white settlement. St. Louis 

* John Bartram. 



POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY. 1/ 

was a Spanish town. What is now Indiana 
had but a single settlement, that at Vin- 
cennes. Detroit was a far-distant outpost, 
sheltering a few hundred pioneers. This 
whole region was an unbroken waste, saving 
at these few scattered points, which were in 
large measure military and trading stations. 
Over all the Indian had free range. Advent- 
urers were exploring the lakes and the rivers, 
and currents of emigration were only slowly 
setting in. And on the 9th of October, 1776, 
three months after the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, two Franciscan monks, indefatiga- 
ble missionaries of the Roman Church, took 
possession of the Pacific coast by the found- 
ing of their Mission of San Francisco, the 
germ of the modern city of that name. 

In the period we are surveying — of shift- 
ing constitutions and changing governments 
— it is difficult to take any instantaneous and 
exact picture of the political structure. The 
process by which the thirteen Colonies trans- 
formed themselves into the thirteen States 
covered a period of several years, and was 
nearly coincident with the military operations 



1 8 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

of the Revolution. Looking at the final result, 
and dwelling only on general principles, it may 
be said that that change consisted simply in 
substituting for the authority of the king the 
sovereignty of the people. Each State had 
its governor and its legislature, the powers 
of government being chiefly lodged with the 
latter. The prerogatives of the governors 
were greatly restricted. The right of suf- 
frage was general, but was abridged in a few 
States by a property qualification, and in a 
few by the fact of color. Except in one or 
two of the New England States, little official 
emphasis was placed upon education ; but, 
throughout all, religious liberty was guarded 
with an ever increasing care. To some ex- 
tent religious tests were for a while required 
for office ; but the Church was practically dis- 
severed from the State, and substantial relig- 
ious equality was enjoyed by all. Truth had 
been given a fair field in which to establish 
her claims, and the individual conscience was 
to be emancipated from all human control. 



CITIES AND TOWNS. 1 9 

II. 

CITIES AND TOWNS. 

If it be true, as there is some ground for 
saying, that the city presents the highest type 
of civilization, then the growth of the country 
during the century has been toward such a 
civiHzation at a rapid rate and in a marked 
degree. The great cities of the United States 
now mass within themselves something like 
one-fifth of the entire population. A hundred 
years ago the proportion was very different ; 
the cities and large towns being then compar- 
atively few and relatively small, and the popu- 
lation far more evenly distributed between 
town and country. " 

A recent writer has given new currency to 
the remark of an experienced traveller and 
shrewd observer, to the effect that now "there 
are five cities in the United States worth liv- 
ing in, — Boston, New York,Washington, New 
Orleans, and San Francisco. Each," he adds, 



20 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

" is self-centred, and in each you find a soci- 
ety with a marked individual flavor." This 
remark, as it applies to the present order of 
leading American cities, seems inexact and 
unjust, in so far as it excludes Philadelphia 
and Baltimore. In making a similar remark a 
hundred years ago, both of those towns would 
certainly have been entitled to mention, tak- 
ing the places of Washington and San Fran- 
cisco ; while Charleston would have been 
named. in place of New Orleans. 

Measured by population, Philadelphia was 
chiefest of the five " individually flavored " 
and "self-centred" towns of the Revolution- 
ary period ; while its central location endowed 
it with additional importance, as was instanced 
in its selection for the sessions of the Conti- 
nental Congress. 

The population of Philadelphia at the time 
of its occupation by the British in 1777-78 
was determined by a census taken by Corn- 
wallis to be something over twenty-one 
thousand ; but at this time, it must be re- 
membered, there had been a considerable exo- 



CITIES AND TOWNS. 21 

dus of citizens, because of the presence of the 
enemy. Its normal population was much 
larger. It was the same city of regular 
streets which it is to-day. Around it lay the 
most fertile and highly cultivated regions of 
the State. When possessed of its full strength, 
it could send eight thousand people to a mass 
meeting. It was an abode of wealth ; and its 
citizens were distinguished for their intelli- 
gence and for social qualities of the highest 
order. Penn and the Quakers had infused 
the community with peculiar elements. The 
commercial spirit was active and enterprising, 
and the rewards of industry were generously 
handled. The aristocratic reserve of its society 
was softened by a philanthropic and hospitable 
spirit, and a distinguished courtesy ; though 
class lines were drawn with considerable dis- 
tinctness. The tranquil life enjoyed before 
the Revolution was of course seriously dis- 
turbed during the years of conflict ; and the 
occupation of the city by the British served 
to introduce an element of riotous living, for 
which there had been no place before. 

Carpenters' Hall, in which the first Con- 



22 REVOLUTIOXARY TIMES. 

tinental Congress assembled, was a consider- 
able structure, standing a little off of Chestnut 
Street, between Third and Fourth. It was of 
two stories, brick, with a cupola, and had been 
erected for the accommodation of the Society 
of House Carpenters. The hall in which the 
Congress held its sessions occupied the entire 
lower floor, being an apartment about forty- 
five feet square, with a recess of a quarter of 
that area in the rear. Here, on Monday, the 
5th of September, 1774, assembled the fifty- 
five delegates of twelve out of the thirteen 
Colonies, Georgia alone not being repre- 
sented. "There is in this Congress," wrote 
John Adams, "a collection of the greatest 
men upon this Continent in point of abilities, 
virtues, and fortunes." Among them were 
George Washington, Patrick Henry, Chris- 
topher Gadsden, Edward and John Rutledge, 
Samuel and John Adams, and John Jay. 
" Every man," again wrote John Adams, '* is 
a great man, an orator, a critic, a statesman ; 
and therefore every man upon every question 
must show his oratory, his criticism, his polit- 
ical abilities. The consequence is that busi- 



CITIES AND TOWNS. 23 

ness is spun out, to an immeasurable length." 
The "immeasurable length" was eight weeks, 
during thirty-one days only of which the Con- 
gress was in actual session. The sessions of 
the second Continental Congress — the body 
by which the immortal Declaration of Inde- 
pendence was made — were held in the old 
State House, now known as Independence 
Hall. At that time, this edifice, by the addi- 
tion of two wings in 1739-40 to the original 
structure, was one of the largest and finest de- 
voted to civil purposes in the country. After- 
ward (in 1783) the grounds about it were 
embellished with trees and shrubbery, by John 
Vaughan, an English gentleman of note, who 
had become a resident of the city. The great 
bell which was rung upon the Declaration 
was one that had been brought from England 
in 1752, and, having been almost immediately 
cracked, recast in 1753. It was in the shadow 
of this Hall that, on the 8th of July, the Dec- 
laration was first publicly read to a vast as- 
semblage of people, gathered from the city 
and the surrounding regions. 

There were other buildings of interest in 



24 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

Philadelphia, and institutions of note and 
influence. There was the " Veteran House," 
where tools, materials, and other requisites 
were furnished to persons out of employ- 
ment ; who were also therein provided with 
lodging, food, and clothing at reasonable 
rates. There was an " American Manufac- 
tory," on the corner of Market and Ninth 
Streets, to which all spinners were invited 
to come, to receive supplies of cotton, wool, 
flax, etc. There was a market, of which the 
boast was made that it was the finest upon 
the Continent. There were clubs, among 
them St. George's, formed of the natives of 
Old England residing in the city. And there 
was the Philosophical Society, already influ- 
ential in the promotion of scientific study. 
One of the curious places of the city was 
a wax-work collection belonging to a Mrs. 
Wells, a sister of a niece of John Wesley, 
where were startling figures of the Prodigal 
Son, and of various real notabilities of more 
recent times ; the whole constituting an at- 
traction which even a sedate congressman 
might not successfully resist. Beside the 



CITIES AND TOWNS. 25 

State House and the Market, there was a small 
court-house, a work-house, and an alms-house ; 
the primitive buildings of the college and 
academy, since become the University of 
Pennsylvania ; two Quaker meeting-houses, 
and eight other churches. Germantown, 
Whitemarsh, and Valley Forge were all near 
enough to the city to be intimately related 
to its history ; and on the mills at Frankford, 
a few miles away, the people were chiefly de- 
pendent for their flour. 

A very interesting inland town of Penn- 
sylvania was Bethlehem. It enjoyed an 
agreeable situation, and a valuable water 
power which was utilized to the support of 
a large group of important mills, and was 
already in possession of a very excellent 
water system, which supplied the town from 
a sufficient "head." The following extract 
from one of Mr. Adams's letters gives a 
pleasant glimpse of the interior life of the 
town : * — 

There are three public institutions here of a very 
remarkable nature ; one, a society of the young men; 

* Familiar Letters, p. 241. 



26 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

another, of the young women; and a third, of the 
widows. There is a large building, divided into many 
apartments, where the young men reside by themselves, 
and carry on their several trades. They pay a rent 
to the society for their rooms, and they pay for their 
board ; and what they earn is their own. There is 
another large building appropriated in the same man- 
ner to the young women. There is a governess, a 
little like the lady abbess in some other institutions, 
who has the superintendence of the whole ; and they 
have elders. Each apartment has a number of young 
women who are vastly industrious, some spinning, 
some weaving, others employed in all the most curious 
works in linen, wool, cotton, silver and gold, silk and 
velvet. This institution displeased me much. Their 
dress was uniform and clean, but very inelegant. 
Their rooms were kept extremely warm with Dutch 
stoves ; and the heat, the want of fresh air and exer- 
cise, relaxed the poor girls in such a manner as must, 
I think, destroy their health. Their countenances 
were languid and pale. 

Lancaster, sixty miles west of Philadel- 
phia, was reputed, in 1777, the largest inland 
town in America. It then contained about a 
thousand houses and about six thousand peo- 
ple. Then as now it was the centre of a very 
delightful agricultural region, and was the 



CITIES AND TOWNS. 27 

seat of some important manufactures. York- 
town, which received some prominence as the 
temporary seat of Congress, was a place of 
inconsiderable size, but had four churches. 
Newark, NJ., being on the line of travel be- 
tween New York and Philadelphia, saw and 
heard much of the affairs of the time, but 
had a population of only about a thousand. 
Princeton already had distinction by reason 
of its excellent college. Pittsburg, now but 
a d^y's journey to the West, was then on 
the extreme border, almost the last outpost 
before plunging into the wilderness of the 
interior. Easton, Penn., was chiefly inhabited 
by the Dutch, and contained a fine stone 
church, built and occupied jointly by Luther- 
ans and Calvinists. The buildings generally 
were of stone. Albany was not yet the State 
capital, but was a town of much political and 
commercial importance. 

New York City in the Revolution had a 
population rising a little above 20,000. The 
town occupied but a very small part of its 
present area. In fact, it extended over but 



28 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

little more than the mere point of Manhattan 
Island. The population was confined almost 
wholly to the district lying below the present 
Reade and Catharine Streets. What is now 
the City Hall Park was then at the extreme 
north end. On the west side there were no 
regular streets laid out above Warren Street ; 
on the east side, Bowery Lane carried the city 
up a little beyond that line into what was 
called " the Out Ward/' beyond which farms 
stretched away in an unbroken expanse. The 
six other wards were known by the names of 
West, South, Dock, East, North, and Mont- 
gomerie. To one approaching the city from 
the harbor, its south-western front presented 
almost an appearance of " heights " like those 
of Brooklyn, so bold and steep was the fall- 
away of the land at the water's edge ; but on 
the eastern side the slope was more gradual. 
Then, as now, Broadway followed the water- 
shed of the island, but came to an end about 
at Chambers Street ; while toward the easterly 
side the Bowery Lane led into the " Road to 
Albany and Boston." Among the prominent 
streets were Broad, Smith, Gold, Queen's, 



CITIES AND TOWNS. 29 

Church, Water, and William. A ferry at the 
foot of Maiden Lane communicated with the 
Long Island shore. The wharves were mostly 
confined to the East River front, along which 
ships could lie for a distance of a mile or 
more. Business found all the room it needed 
iji the precincts near the water. The upper 
part of Wall Street was a favorite and fash- 
ionable place of residence, Broadway being 
wholly free from trade, and its lower end, 
in the vicinity of the Bowling Green, the 
choicer. 

The public buildings of the city included the 
City Hall, at the head of Broad Street, where 
the Treasury Building now stands ; and the 
Royal Exchange, at the foot of Broad Street 
where it joined with Dock ; the latter, a curi- 
ous building, raised by arches upon pillars, so 
as to leave its ground floor open on all sides. 

The churches of old New York hardly 
need any description, much less enumera- 
tion. There was Trinity, of course, but then 
a very unpretending structure; the Old Brick 
Church, on Chatham Street or Park Row, 
where the " Times" Building now stands, and 



30 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES, 

at that time an " up-town church ; " the Mid- 
dle Dutch Church, on Nassau Street, whose 
quaint exterior still preserves its identity, 
notwithstanding the many changes it under- 
went while in use as a post-office ; the North 
Dutch Church, on the corner of Fulton and 
William Streets ; and the John Street Metho- 
dist Church ; with others that we need not 
stop to mention. 

New York had many and notable taverns 
and coffee-houses ; the chief of the former 
being the City Tavern, which stood almost at 
the very foot of Broadway, and bore at one time 
the common and popular name of *' The Bunch 
of Grapes." Another of about equal promi- 
nence was the " Queen Charlotte," on a corner 
of Broad and Dock Streets, where was spread 
that farewell dinner at which Washington 
took leave of his officers at the close of the 
war. The coffee-houses were places of great 
resort, until the war disarranged the social 
relations and serene condition of the people. 
Here the newspapers were to be seen ; and 
here gentlemen gathered for intercourse and 
discussion, after the pleasant English plan. 



CITIES AND TOWNS. 3 1 

The Tontine Coffee-House, on the corner of 
Wall and Water Streets, which however be- 
longed to a somewhat later day, was reputed 
the equal of any in London. Here one could 
live in handsome style for .£70 or <£ 80 a year, 
** wine and porter excepted." 

There were many fine private residences 
in New York, the most famous of which, the 
Walton House, stood in what is now Frank- 
lin Square, then almost out of town. This 
was a very elaborate and costly edifice, fifty 
feet in front and three stories high, nearly all 
the materials of which were imported from 
England. Through the other parts of the 
island were scattered many fine estates, among 
them those of the De Lanceys, the Wattses, 
the Bayards, the Apthorps, the Stuyvesants, 
the Morrises, and the Livingstons. 

The city had its markets, a rude attempt 
at water-works, the luxury of ice in sum- 
mer, societies of benevolence and culture, 
clubs, and many other appurtenances of a 
life of elegance and ease. Its commerce was 
considerable, as many as six hundred sail of 
vessels entering the harbor during one of 



32 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

the years immediately preceding the out- 
break of the war. There was no bank, but 
there were insurance companies and com- 
mercial societies ; and the merchants by 
their foresight and enterprise gave promise 
of the vast development which the metropolis 
has attained in the century now closed. 

A very conspicuous object of the city in 
colonial times was the equestrian statue of 
George the Third, which stood in the centre 
of the Bowling Green. It was overthrown 
by the soldiers in a fit of patriotism following 
the Declaration of Independence ; and, accord- 
ing to tradition, the lead of which it was com- 
posed was removed, to be run into bullets for 
the use of the American army. A great 
event in New York, and one which is indis- 
solubly linked with the Revolutionary period, 
was the conflagration which broke out on 
the 2 1 St of September, 1776, and which laid a 
large portion of the city in ruins. It began 
near the Battery, in the night ; and, driven 
•by a fresh wind, the flames spread with great 
rapidity, and swept away almost every thing 
between Broad Street and the North River, 



CITIES AND TOWNS. 33 

as high up as the City Hall, and even further ; 
sparing not even Trinity Church, or a number 
of other important buildings. TJie fire was 
charged upon the Americans by the British 
as a piece of incendiarism. 

Only as respects the size of its population 
can the Boston of Revolutionary times be 
made to take rank below New York and 
Philadelphia. If not the body, it was the 
brain, and at the same time the heart, of the 
young nation ; and in moral quality and power 
yielded place to none of its rivals. The area 
of the town comprised about seven hundred 
acres, shaped almost into an island, the neck 
which attached the territory to the mainland 
being so narrow and so low that the high 
tides often broke across it. Viewed in the 
midst of its surroundings, it presented a very 
different aspect from that of to-day. East 
Boston was Noddle's Island. South Boston 
was Dorchester Heights. Dorchester, Rox- 
bury, Brookline, and Cambridge were remote 
villages. The " Back Bay " was a bay in- 
deed. Charlestown was a peninsula of pas- 

3 



34 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

tures, with but a touch of settlement on that 
extremity which lay directly opposite Boston. 
No bridges whatsoever connected the town 
with any of its environs. The foot of Boyl^ 
ston Street, where the Providence Railroad 
Depot now stands, was washed by the tides, 
and the water also skirted the whole western 
border of the Common. There were between 
fifteen hundred and two thousand houses, 
most of the buildings of the town being 
clustered on the harbor front. The crooked 
streets were illy paved. There were no side- 
walks in the modern sense, and no public 
street lights." The population was not far 
from 17,000. 

Of the three historic hills of Old Boston, — 
Copp's Hill, Fort Hill, and Beacon Hill, — 
not one retains to-day the appearance of a 
hundred years ago. Fort Hill has been razed 
within the memory of some of the younger 
inhabitants. Beacon Hill had been consider- 
ably dug away before it received its present 
crown of buildings, private and public ; and 
Copp's Hill, when it was utilized by the Brit- 
ish for the bombardment of the American 



CITIES AND TOWNS. 35 

works at Charlestown, on the occasion of the 
Battle of Bunker's Hill, had an abrupt and 
considerable cliff facing the water's edge. 

One of the choice precincts of Old Boston, 
Bowdoin Square, retains a measure of its 
dignity to this very day ; but another, even 
choicer. Church Green, at the junction of 
Summer and Bedford Streets, has given place 
to a far different scene. The Great Elm on 
the Common, now just fallen of old age, had 
then a companion in the Liberty Tree, a noble 
elm which stood at the junction of Washing- 
ton, Essex, and Boylston Streets. This was 
the patriots' rendezvous, and was cut down out 
of sheer spite by the Tories, while the British 
were in possession of the city in the autumn 
of 1775. 

The public buildings of the town included, 
first and foremost, Faneuil Hall, at that time 
a two-storied structure ; the old State House, 
at the head of King Street, now State Street, 
with sun-dial in place of clock, and tower con- 
siderably higher than it is now ; and the 
royal Custom House, on the south-east corner 
of Exchange and King Streets. A notable 



36 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

building was the Manufactory House, which 
stood about where Hamilton Place now opens 
out of Tremont Street. This was a two-story 
building of brick, one hundred and forty feet 
long, with wings, and as late as 1784 com- 
manded an unobstructed view to the south- 
ward. It was at first the home of various 
trades and manufactures encouraged by the 
State, but afterwards housed the Massachu- 
setts Bank, and finally was turned into a 
family abode. The Music Hall of those times 
was Concert Hall, on the southerly corner of 
Court and Hanover Streets. Here the aris- 
tocracy of the town attended many of their 
concerts and their balls. 

Of the churches of Boston, none occupied 
a more prominent place than the Old South, 
whose history and associations are so familiar 
that they need not be recounted here. Then 
there was the Brattle Street Church, which, 
like the Old South, was made to harbor Brit- 
ish troops ; the Old North Church at the 
North End, which General Howe demolished 
and turned into fuel ; the New North Church 
on Hanover Street ; the West Church on 



1 



CITIES AND TOWNS. 37 

Cambridge Street, which also served as bar- 
racks to the British ; the First Church, or 
Old Brick, where Joy's Building now stands ; 
King's Chapel ; Trinity Church, then of wood, 
predecessor to the granite structure which the 
great fire of 1872 laid low ; Christ Church, at 
the North End, in its day one of the orna- 
ments of the town, and from whose steeple 
was hung the signal lantern " on the eighteenth 
of April, 'seventy-five ; " and the Church on 
Federal Street, the location after made cele- 
brated by the ministry of Dr. Channing. 

At the time of which we write, there was 
no block of buildings in Boston. There was 
little architectural pretension of any kind. 
The common material was wood, and brick 
buildings were few and far between. There 
were, however, some notable houses. There 
was the Province House, a stately edifice, in 
open grounds nearly opposite the head of 
Milk Street. This was built of brick, in three 
stories, with considerable attempts at decora- 
tion both within and without. The Faneuil 
Mansion, which stood about opposite to the 
present Museum, on the hill-side back from 



38 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

the street, was another imposing house. Per- 
haps as grand and fine as any, and a good 
specimen of a town mansion in colonial times, 
was the Hancock House, which only within a 
few years has yielded its place to more mod- 
ern abodes. The Hancock grounds comprised 
a considerable area upon the summit of Beacon 
Hill. The site of the State House was the 
pasture, and gardens and orchards extended 
all around. The Hancock House is well 
worth pausing to look at as a specimen colo- 
nial mansion. Let us take Mr. Drake's de- 
scription of it : * — 

The building was of stone, built in the substantial 
manner favored by the wealthier Bostonians. The 
walls were massive. A balcony projected over the 
entrance-door, upon which opened a large window of 
the second story. The corners and window-openings 
were ornamented with Braintree stone, and the tiled 
roof was surmounted by a balustrade. Dormer win- 
dows jutted out from the roof, from which might 
be obtained a view as beautiful as extensive. A low 
stone wall protected the grounds from the street, on 
which was placed a light wooden fence, with gate-posts 
of the same material. A paved walk and a dozen 

* Old Landmarks of Boston, p. 339. 



CITIES AND TOWNS. 39 

stone steps conducted to the mansion, situated on 
rising grfcund at a little distance back from the street. 
Before the door was a wide stone slab, worn by the 
feet of the distinguished inhabitant and his illustrious 
guests. A wooden hall, designed for festive occa- 
sions, sixty feet in length, was joined to the northern 
wing: it was afterwards removed to Allen Street. 

The description of the interior is thus 
continued in Mr. Drake's pages by Miss 
Gardner, who was long an inmate of the 
house:* — 

As you entered the governor's mansion, to the right 
was the drawing or reception room, with furniture of 
bird's-eye maple covered with rich damask. Out of 
this opened the dining hall referred to, in which Han- 
cock gave the famous breakfast to Admiral d'Estaing 
and his officers. Opposite this was a smaller apart- 
ment, the usual dining-hall of the family ; next adjoin- 
ing were the china-room and offices, with coach-house 
and barn behind. 

At the left of the entrance was a second saloon, or 
family drawing-room, the walls covered with crimson 
paper. The upper and lower halls were hung with 
pictures of game-hunting scenes, and other subjects. 
Passing through this hall, another flight of steps led 
through the garden to a small summer-house close to 
Mount Vernon Street. The grounds were laid out in 

* Old Landmarks of Boston, p. 339. 



40 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

ornamental flower-beds bordered with box. Box-trees 
of large size, with a great variety of fruit, among 
which were several immense mulberry-trees, dotted 
the garden. 

But we must not linger longer even in 
Boston. 

Of other towns in New England, Falmouth, 
now Portland, was already in occupation of its 
charming site, and was the most important 
town in the old province of Maine. It had 
some four hundred dwelling-houses, some of 
them noticeable for size and elegance, and 
each with its garden ; and there were several 
churches and a library. Portsmouth, N.H., 
was likewise in the enjoyment of a respectable 
age and a lucrative commerce. Exeter was 
the seat of the State government, and boasted 
five or six hundred dwelling-houses. New- 
buryport had just received the remains of 
Rev. George Whitefield, and was all aflame 
with patriotic fire. Salem had about four 
hundred houses ; was active, enterprising, 
and opulent. Marblehead had distinguished 
itself for its fish trade, and as a breeding 



CITIES AND TOWNS. 4 1 

place of sailors. Cambridge was " a pretty- 
town," chiefly worthy of consideration as the 
seat of Harvard College. Watertown was 
reputed a place of considerable importance, 
but was scarcely more than a village. Spring- 
field counted about two hundred buildings, 
including one meeting-house and five taverns, 
affording accommodations for a population of 
something less than 1,500. Newport, R.I., had 
been eclipsed by Providence, whose population 
was now about 5,000. Hartford, Conn., was 
not yet an incorporated city ; nor was New 
Haven. 

Casting the eye now again to the south- 
ward, we find in Maryland only two towns 
of any importance ; namely, Baltimore and 
Annapolis, a pleasant rivalry existing between 
the two. No District of Columbia had yet 
been blocked out of the State. Georgetown 
had a score or so of houses ; but the site of 
Washington was still held by pastures and 
plantations. Annapolis had been the head- 
quarters of Revolutionary sentiment in the 
years immediately preceding the war, and the 
old buildings which it preserves to this day 



42 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

show much of its appearance a hundred years 
ago. The State House was erected in 1772, 
and was greatly admired at the time, as it 
deserved to be. Maryland's four signers of the 
Declaration — Samuel Chase, William Paca, 
Thomas Stone, and Charles Carroll — were all 
residents of Annapolis ; and full-length por- 
traits of them all, two by Copley, still adorn 
the walls of the Senate Chamber. Paca is 
shown in a claret-colored coat, a white silk 
vest, black silk breeches, and white silk stock- 
ings ; Stone, in a suit of graver hue. 

Baltimore was then as ever beautiful for 
situation ; had a population of from 6,000 to 
7,000 ; and was noted for its wealth and cul- 
ture. Enjoying comparative immunity from 
the disturbances caused by the Revolution, its 
prosperity was scarcely interrupted thereby. 
Many of its opulent merchants and aristo- 
cratic families established their country-seats 
in the environs of the town, where they dwelt 
in ease, and administered a generous hospi- 
tality. 

The most important town at the far South 
was Charleston, S.C., whose spacious harbor 



CITIES AND TOWNS. 43 

attracted a considerable commerce. The sight 
of several hundred vessels there assembled at 
a time was not an uncommon one. Previous 
to the great fire of 1778, Charleston contained 
nearly 2,000 houses, besides many public 
buildings, among which latter was an impos- 
ing Exchange. The chief exports were rice 
and indigo, and the rapid accumulation of 
wealth favored a luxurious and showy manner 
of life. The society of the town was distin- 
guished by many beautiful and accomplished 
women. No other of the Colonies sent so 
many of its sons and daughters abroad for 
their education ; and the English spirit infused 
itself into many of the customs of the people. 
Savannah was covered to some extent by 
the shadow of Charleston, but was the centre 
of an intelligent and patriotic life, and lay 
surrounded with large and fertile plantations, 
devoted to the culture of rice, tobacco, and in- 
digo ; with some mulberry orchards contrib- 
uting to the silk manufacture. Augusta was 
scarcely more than a remote trading-post. 
About ten miles from Savannah was " Beth- 
esda," the orphan house founded by White- 



44 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

field, for the accommodation of children of 
deceased settlers. Mr. Piercy, an Episcopal 
clergyman, was in charge. New Orleans, 
then an object of contention between the 
Spanish and the French, had a population of 
about 3,000, of whom a third were slaves ; 
but possessed an importance of its own as the 
head-quarters of the Spanish population in 
the valley of the Mississippi, which amounted 
to upwards of 13,000. 



PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONS. 45 



III. 
PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONS. 

There is extant a brief narrative which 
furnishes at once graphic pictures of some of 
the foregoing towns, and many others, and a 
very vivid idea of the difficuUies and perils of 
travel in the United States a hundred years 
ago. The narrative is that of Elkanah Wat- 
son, a young Rhode-Islander, who, in 1777, 
made the journey from Providence to Charles- 
ton, S.C, on an errand of considerable respon- 
sibility. Though but nineteen years of age, 
he possessed excellent powers of observation 
and a mature judgment ; and the daily journal 
which he kept has no small historical value, 
as an outline of it will readily make plain. 

It was early in September when young 
Watson set forth, on horseback of course ; a 
" hanger " at his side and a pair of pistols at 
his holster. His way led him first through 



46 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

the farms of Eastern Connecticut to Hartford, 
which he found to be " a wealthy and respect- 
able place" of about three hundred houses. 
New Haven was somewhat larger. On cross- 
ing the Hudson, which he did at Peekskill, he 
entered a community of Dutch and Germans ; 
whose neat houses, generally of stone, pleased 
him, and whose quaint table-customs gave 
him some amusement. At Morristown, NJ,, 
he fell in with two other travellers going in 
the same direction, and exchanged his seat on 
the saddle for one in a " sulky." The British 
having just taken possession of Philadelphia, 
the party were obliged to make a considerable 
detour, by way of Reading, Lancaster, and 
York ; and even then suffered a night's ar- 
rest at one point, on suspicion of being British 
spies. They spent two days at Bethlehem, 
" an interesting place," where a " spacious 
tavern " afforded them very welcome comforts. 
The next points of interest in their way were 
Reading, then containing about four hundred 
houses ; Reamstown, where young Watson 
had for the first time a personal experience of 
the German custom of sleeping between two 



PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONS. 47 

beds ; and Euphrates, " within sound of Wash- 
ington's cannon at Germantown." At Eu- 
phrates an opportunity was afforded of study- 
ing a community of " Dunkers," numbering 
about one hundred persons, whose peculiari- 
ties did not excite admiration. 

Passing Lancaster, they came to York, 
where Congress, driven out of Philadelphia, 
was then in session, and where passports had 
to be obtained for a continuation of the jour- 
ney : which, so far, had occupied just a 
month. 

Crossing Maryland and entering Virginia, 
Mr. Watson found Fredericksburg to be a 
pleasantly situated village of less than a thou- 
sand inhabitants, surrounded by fine planta- 
tions. Williamsburg, the capital, contained 
upwards of three hundred dwellings, built 
chiefly of wood, on one street nearly a mile 
in length. 

Entering North Carolina, the first place of 
importance was Edenton, with its thirty-five 
houses and brick court-house. Thence the 
route lay, partly by water and partly by land, 
to Bath, the region being generally uninhab- 



48 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

ited and desolate. The river Neuse was fer- 
ried by night with no little difficulty and some 
danger ; and Newbern, the capital of the Col- 
ony, was finally reached with great satisfac- 
tion. It contained at the time about one hun- 
dred and fifty dwellings. 

Between Newbern and Wilmington, the 
next town in course, lay an almost unbroken 
wilderness ; at one point of which our traveller 
lost his way, and in another encountered a 
large bear. Wilmington had been a place of 
considerable trade, which was now however 
at a stand-still, owing to the war. Some dis- 
tance beyond Wilmington, the road took ad- 
vantage for the length of sixteen miles of the 
beach, whose hard surface and exhilarating 
prospect gave delightful relief from the mo- 
notonous loneliness of the swamps and pine- 
barrens. Half-way along this beach-road, a 
party of travellers was met going northwards, 
who had with them the tidings of Burgoyne's 
surrender, the same having reached the South 
by a more expeditious way. On the i8th of 
November, Mr. Watson entered Charleston, 
having occupied seventy days in travelling 
1,243 miles. 



PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONS. 49 

Mr, Watson's errand, it may be said, was to 
convey a very large sum of money to his em- 
ployer's agents at the South. His funds were 
not in the shape of the checks or drafts of mod- 
ern times, but, it would seem, in cash, securely 
quilted into the lining of his coat. Subse- 
quently he extended his journey into Georgia ; 
and, in the following spring, returned to the 
North by the way he had come. The conclu- 
sions which he reached as the result of this 
extensive tour have a peculiar interest by rea- 
son of their prophetic character : — 

The map of the world presents to view no country 
which combines so many natural advantages, is so 
pleasantly diversified, and offers to agriculture, manu- 
factures, and commerce so many resources, all of 
which cannot fail to conduct America to the first rank 
among nations. This I prophesy. It must be so. 
In contemplating future America, the mind is lost in 
the din of cities, in harbors and rivers crowded with 
sails, and in the immensity of the population. . . . 
Admitting our population to double every twenty-three 
years, the result, in a hundred years, will be sixty-two 
millions of republican freemen, approaching one hun- 
dred millions in the year 1900, which will be nearly 
equal to all Europe at the present day. 

One incident related by Mr. Watson strik- 
4 



50 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

ingly illustrates the hospitality for which the 
South has ever been celebrated. He and a 
companion stopped one day at noon in the 
vicinity of Beaufort, at a house which they 
supposed to be a tavern ; and ordered dinner, 
with wine, in a spirit of the utmost freedom. 
On inquiring for their bill, their entertainer's 
reply was : ** Gentlemen, I keep no tavern, 
but am very much obliged to you for your 
visit." And, not content with this, he exacted 
from his visitors a promise to stop with him 
again, when they should afterwards pass that 
way. 

It is easy to see from this recital what it 
was to travel a hundred years ago. The for- 
ests still sheltered many beasts of prey, and 
the unsettled times gave license to the high- 
wayman. In sparsely populated districts, the 
blazing of trees was often the traveller's only 
guide. Not seldom would night overtake him 
when far from human habitation ; and cut off 
from the accommodations of a wayside tavern, 
' or the comforts of some hospitable roof, he 
would be obliged to bivouac in the forest, with 
his trusty horse for his only companion, and 



PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONS. 5 1 

the clouds for his only canopy. In going 
between distant parts of the country, within 
the limits of military occupation, permits were 
generally desirable, and sometimes necessary. 
At this time, the common road was of course 
the only public highway. Railroads were still 
far in the future, and in 1777 the first canal 
only was building. This was in Virginia from 
Waltham to Richmond, a distance of seven 
miles, with the object of furnishing access to 
a coal mine. There was one trunk road from 
Boston, closely following the coast to the 
mouth of the Kennebec ; another into New 
Hampshire, and so on into Canada ; another to 
Providence ; and another to New York, con- 
necting the towns of Springfield, Hartford, and 
New Haven, and joined at the latter point by 
one which skirted the shore of the Sound from 
as far east as the mouth of Narragansett Bay. 
From New York there were two roads north- 
ward, following the two sides of the Hudson 
River as far as Albany, one continuing thence 
to Lake George, the other diverging to the 
Mohawk Valley. Southward, a road crossed 
New Jersey to the Delaware River, and thence 
to Philadelphia, and the regions beyond. 



52 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

Over these roads the only public convey- 
ance was by stage-coach. The fast coach 
between New York and Philadelphia, known 
as the " Flying Machine," made the journey 
in two days. From Philadelphia to Baltimore 
it was a five days' journey by similar convey- 
ance. A journey from Boston to Phila- 
delphia was something to be spoken of with 
an exclamation point. There was a weekly 
stage between Boston and Portsmouth, and 
another from Boston to Newburyport, this 
advertisement of which in the *' Boston 
Gazette," of May lo, 1773, may interest the 
reader : — 

Ezra Lunt 

"OEGS Leave to inform the Public, That he has 
-*-^ lately purchafed an Interefl in the Newbury-Port 
Stage, which has been lately fixed on a new Conftruc- 
tion, in which he intends to improve four Horfes, 
which he will drive himfelf. — Therefore he flatters 
himfelf that thofe Gentlemen and Ladies that will 
oblige him with their Cuftom, will find more Eafe and 
Pleafure in their Paffages to and from Bofton, than 
they did heretofore. As faid LUNT intends to ob- 
ferve Pun6luality in his Bufinefs, therefore he begs 
that thofe Gentlemen and Ladies that intend to be his 



PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONS. 53 

Cuftomers, would take Notice that he will wait on 
them for their Commands at his Houfe in Newbury- 
Port, oppofite the Rev. Mr. Parfons's Meeting Houfe ; 
from whence he will fet out on Monday every Week, 
at Seven o'Clock, and puts up at Mrs. Bean's, at the 
Sign of the Ship in King-Street, Bofton ; where all 
Baggage, Bundles, &c. will be received and delivered 
as dire6led, and Paflages engaged. All Favours will 
be gratefully acknowledged. 

After the Revolution, a semi-weekly stage 
was established between New York and Bos- 
ton, which made the trip in six days. 

Many travellers, however, eschewed the pub- 
lic stage-coach, preferring their private vehi- 
cles, the saddle or the pillion. Occasionally 
the traveller, bound upon a long journey in 
chaise or sulky, would advertise for a com- 
panion. 

Journeys between distant points upon the 
coast could of course be made by water. So 
Mr. Josiah Quincy, Jr., went from Boston to 
Charleston, S.C., in 1773, a voyage which 
took him twenty days. The Boston and Fal- 
mouth packet afforded communication every 
ten days between Massachusetts and Maine ; 
''the Publick's humble Servant," William 



54 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

Holland, proprietor, advertising that the mas- 
ter of the packet, '' in order to prevent the 
ufual Trouble of Gentlemen and Ladies pro- 
curing them Stores will furnifh good Liquors 
of all Sorts, and proper Attendance, at the 
common Prices in Taverns." 

There were occasional packets between 
Boston and various ports at the South, and 
between Boston and the settlements upon the 
St. Lawrence. As for ocean travel, that 
of course was the most formidable of all. 
There were regular packets between Boston 
and New York and English ports ; and six 
weeks was not an uncommon time for the 
voyage. 

The difficulties and delays of travel were 
felt with special force in the conveyance of 
troops for the conduct of the war. With our 
remembrance of the great transports and 
immense rail-trains used in the late Rebellion, 
it is hard to conceive of the narrowness of 
the resources available in the Revolution. 

The postal system was in an equally im- 
perfect condition. In certain parts of the 
country there were no mails whatever, and to 



PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONS. 55 

a great extent letters were sent by private 
hand. As a consequence, the transmission of 
correspondence was exceedingly uncertain, 
and often provokingly delayed. In a degree 
it was entirely interrupted by the war. The 
London papers of Sept. 28, 1776, contained 
this notice from the general post-office : — 

A Mail will be difpatched from hence on Wednef- 
day next for New York, and alfo one for Charleftown ; 
after which there will be no regular Conveyance for 
Letters from the Office to North America ; — but when- 
ever a Packet may be difpatched to any part of that 
Continent, proper Notice will be given. 

On the other hand, read this notice from 
the " Pennsylvania Gazette : " — 

GENERAL POST OFFICE. 

Philadelphia, February 14th, 1775. 
It having been found very inconvenient to perfons 
concerned in trade, that the mail from Philadelphia 
to New England fets out but once a fortnight during 
the winter feafon ; this is to give notice, that the New 
England mail will henceforth go once a week the year 
round ; when a correfpondence may be carried on, 
and anfwers obtained to letters between Philadelphia 
and Bolton in three weeks, which ufed in the winter to 
require fix weeks. 

By command of the poftmafter general. 

William Franklin, Comptroller. 



56 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

William Franklin was a son of Benjamin 
Franklin. His notice bespeaks an enterpris- 
ing and vigorous administration ; but it reads 
oddly by the side of the announcements of 
the new post line in 1876, running through 
between the same points in less than twenty- 
four hours. 

The arrangements under which the mails 
were often carried are well set forth in the 
following advertisement from the *' Conti- 
nental Journal," of Dec. 25, 1777: — 

William Shurtliff, Poft-Rider. 

Letters dire6led to the army now at the foiith- 
wardy lodged at the publick hou/es, or places, here- 
after 7netitioned, on Thursday the Zth day ^January 
1778, viz, at Col. SproutV Middleboroiigh : Capt. 
Nathaniel Little's, KifigJlo7i; Mr. Thomas Witherel's, 
Plymouth; Mr. Jonathan Parker's Ply7nton ; MeJJTrs. 
Porter's a7td White's Taii7ito7i ; Mr. Samuel Lane's 
Norto7ij Gill's Pri7tti7ig Office a7id La77tb Tavern, 
Bofton ; Mr. Partridge'^-, Roxbury ; Mr. Daniel 
Vofe's a7id Mrs. Bent'i- Milton; Mrs. May'i- Stough- 
ton ; Mr. Randell, Stoughtonham ; Mr. Manj-, Wren^ 
tha77i, a7id at his Honfe in Ma7isfield ; will be care- 
fully conveyed and a fpeedy Return made by the 
Publick's moft humble Servant. 

William Shurtliff. 



PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONS. 5/ 

N.B. It will be expelled that the pojlages be left with 
the letters ; and am very forry to acquaint 7ny Cuf- 
totners and others that I canfiot afford to carry tinder 
Three Shillings per fingle Letter; a7td if it be duly 
cofifidered that the Seafon of the Year is bad, the 
Journey long, and expeftces ofi the Road fb amazing 
great, I flatter myfelf I fJiall not be thought unrea- 
fonable. 

Without giving too much license to the 
imagination, we can easily picture to ourselves 
the country post-office of those days. We 
may find it at the village tavern, where once 
a week the passing stage-coach deposits the 
pouch which serves a common purpose for all 
the towns around. The letters for this office 
are leisurely removed by the post-master, and 
the others replaced to be carried on to further 
destinations ; and, as he lays the mail away in 
the single box or narrow drawer which can 
easily contain it all, he and the curious group 
of by-standers about him carefully scrutinize 
each letter as if to read its very soul, and 
make it the theme of gossip and remark until 
another week rolls round. 

Letters meant something in those days. 



58 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

Writing paper was often a very scarce com- 
modity, postage was costly, and when people 
wrote at all they were likely to write long and 
well. We shall doubtless never see again 
such letters as have come down to us out 
of this past. 



CHARACTER AND LIFE. 59 



IV. 



SOME GENERAL FEATURES OF CHAR- 
ACTER AND LIFE. 

The most distinct coloring which different 
parts of the country wore in turn at the time 
of the Revolution was of course the military 
coloring. The highways were often full of 
marching men, the harbors of transports and 
vessels of war, the cities of garrisons ; and 
fortifications and the signs of war met the eye 
in almost every direction. The stillness of the 
Sabbath was broken, and the privacy of homes 
invaded, by the inseparable accompaniments 
of the camp and the campaign. But all this 
impress could not obliterate the distinct feat- 
ures of the life of the period. 

The population of the United States in 
1776 was about three millions. The con- 
trasts between the North and the South, 
though not so marked as they grew to be, 



6o REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

were yet striking ; almost as much so in the 
temper and habit of the people as in the phys- 
ical aspects and the climate of the two sec- 
tions. The leading traits of New England 
character and life were thus summed up by 
John Adams, in 1775 :* — 

New England has, in many respects, the advantage 
of every other colony in America, and, indeed, of 
every other part of the world that I know any thing of. 

1. The people are purer English blood ; less mixed 
with Scotch, Irish, Dutch, French, Danish, Swedish, 
&c., than any other ; and descended from Englishmen, 
too, who left Europe in purer times than the present, 
and less tainted with corruption than those they left 
behind them. 

2. The institutions in New England for the sup- 
port of religion, morals, and decency exceed any 
other ; obliging every parish to have a minister, and 
every person to go to meeting, &c. 

3. The pubhc institutions in New England for the 
education of youth, supporting colleges at the public 
expense, and obliging towns to maintain grammar 
schools, are not equaled, and never were, in any part 
of the world. 

4. The division of our territory, that is, our coun- 
ties, into townships ; empowering towns to assemble, 
choose officers, make laws, mend roads, and twenty 

* Familiar Letters, pp. 120, 121. 



CHARACTER AND LIFE. 6l 

other things, gives every man an opportunity of show- 
ing and improving that education which he received at 
college or at school, and makes knowledge and dex- 
terity at public business common. 

5. Our law for the distribution of intestate estates 
occasions a frequent division of landed property, and 
prevents monopolies of land. 

In warmth and generosity of temperament, 
the people of the Middle and Southern Colo- 
nies perhaps surpassed their brethren in New 
England ; the arts of a stately and fashion- 
able life were carried by them to a greater 
degree of perfection ; and there was an indul- 
gence in expensive and luxurious tastes to a 
degree with which the sterner spirit of the 
Pilgrim and the Puritan could hardly sym- 
pathize. But such a disposition sought ex- 
cesses which often settled into vices, and the 
general character of the people suffered in 
consequence. Many of the Southern planters 
lived in a state of real magnificence and splen- 
dor. The family mansion was often the cen- 
tre of a little village of negro huts, and the 
proprietor ruled absolute over a considerable 
community. The landed aristocracy of Vir- 
ginia and the Carolinas patterned their lives 



62 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

largely after the English model, and strenu- 
ously preserved the line between the patrician 
and the plebeian. There were few more fer- 
tile and carefully finished regions than the 
farms of Eastern Pennsylvania ; and the rep- 
resentative farmer of that State was often a 
man of intelligence and taste as well as of 
wealth, giving large place to the library in 
his comfortable abode, and finding time amidst 
the pursuits of the field for the pleasures and 
profits of the intellectual life. 

The two great parties were the Whigs and 
the Tories, names which were first adopted 
about 1770 to distinguish the republicans and 
the loyalists of the Revolution. Party spirit 
ran high, and often degenerated into bitterness 
and hatred. 

There was wealth ; but there were few vast 
fortunes, measured by the standards of to-day. 
In all the country, there was probably not 
more than one man, perhaps not even one, 
who was worth a million of dollars. He was 
a rich man, in Boston or New York, who had 
his forty or fifty thousand pounds. 

We must not think that our present times 



CHARACTER AND LIFE. 63 

are the worst which our country has seen. 
John Adams, writing from Philadelphia, in 
October, 1776, when and where Congress was 
in session, said to his wife : — 

The spirit of venality you mention is the most 
dreadful and alarming enemy America has to oppose. 
It is as rapacious and insatiable as the grave. . . . 
This predominant avarice will ruin America, if she is 
ever ruined. If God Almighty does not interfere by 
His grace to control this universal idolatry to the mam- 
mon of unrighteousness, we shall be given up to the 
chastisement of His judgments. I am ashamed of the 
age I live in. 

Unfortunately, venality was not the only 
vice of the times. There were many and 
grave departures from the standards, at least 
from those standards which are commonly 
accepted now. Intemperance and grosser 
immoralities were common, and had not the 
force of public sentiment to struggle with 
which has been raised up against them in 
recent times. Profaneness, which is now both 
unchristian and ungentlemanly, was at least 
hardly ungentlemanly then ; and the lottery 
system, which is now generally prohibited by 



64 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

statute, had then the countenance of good cit- 
izens and even the sanction of the Congress. 
By a lottery, indeed, the Congress sought aid 
towards meeting the expenses of the war. 
Mob violence was a necessary feature of the 
times, and social scandals had their place as 
now upon the public record. We venture to 
reproduce from the " New England Chroni- 
cle," of April 25, 1776, the following "state- 
ment," which is an affecting one by reason 
of both its tenor and its syntax. We call the 
reader's special attention to the " brass kettle." 

To the PRINTER 

npHE inhabitants of New-Bofton, having obferved 
-*• in feveral of your papers, a publication of Wil- 
liam M'Neil of faid town ; fetting forth, in a very 
erroneous and cruel manner, that his wife had wafted 
his fubftance, and had refufed living with him at his 
lodgings ; and he was ftill willing to receive her, and 
to treat her courteoufly and cordially ; notwithftand- 
ing alfo, refufeth paying any debt, fhe may hereafter 
contra6l, fome of which things are falfe, and the reft 
inhumane and cruel. 

Therefore, the inhabitants in town-meeting aftem- 
bled, unanimoufly voted their entire difapprobation, 
and contempt of the proceedings of faid M'Neil, * 



1 



CHARACTER AND LIFE. 65 

refpe6ling his wife, and beg leave to inform the public 
of the true flate and circumflances of the cafe. Mrs. 
M'Neil, before fhe married her prefent hufband, was a 
widow, and had under her care the eftate of her chil- 
dren ; and Mr. M'Neil was a man of very little intereft, 
and as little inclined to labour. He had three lots of 
land given him, in faid town, for fettling (each lot con- 
tained 50 acres) except a very trifle, which he paid for 
three cottages, which the proprietors built on faid lots. 
The value of the land was then but trifling, for there 
were then but three families in the town. Before 
marriage, Mr. M'Neil borrowed money of Mrs. M'- 
Neil, which belonged to her children, to pay his debts, 
which he was then involved in ; and alfo gave him the 
very fhirt that he was married in ; and dire6lly after 
marriage, was obliged to fell even the very curtains, 
frorn her bed, to pay for his board, which he alfo owed 
.e marriage ; and the firfh fummer after they were 
^rried, flie tarried in Chefber (where flie formerly 
lived) and by her own frugality, prudence and induflry, 
and by felling her brafs kettle (which was hers alfo 
before marriage) flie provided herfelf, her hufband, 
and two boys, with provifions of all forts for that fum- 
mer (and the three lafl; were at New-Bofton, at the 
difl:ance of better than 30 miles from her.) And fince 
fhe removed to New-Bofbon, which is better than 20 
years, flie has reared a family of fmall children ; and 
by her continual affiduity, has brought his eftate to 
what it now is ; which is not inconfiderable ; and he 
himfelf has been abfent almofl; the whole of the time 

5 



66 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

(except in the winter, there was little or nothing to be 
done ;) fo that it appears in fadl, that fhe has main- 
tained him, herfelf, and family, almoft entirely fmce 
they were unhappily joined. And now, inftead of her 
forfaking him, he has forfoken her, "and his family, and 
let out the farm to a flranger (upon terms which 
he denied their own fon) and feems to requeft her to 
remove to a place (where all things confidered) every 
body muft judge unreafonable, as well as unjuft, and 
cruel, which to avoid all refle(5lions that we poffibly 
can, and do the innocent juftice we fhall omit ; and to 
make her cafe as deplorable, as poffible, threatens to 
take from her all the necelTaries of life, and requires 
her to do that, which (without breach of charity) we 
think we can affert, he himfelf in nowife wifheth and 
refufeth to leave to indifferent perfons, to fettle honour- 
ably that, which, by the tenor of his actions, he does 
not wifh to be done honeftly. And now having de- 
clared the truth, we fubmit it to the public, to judge 
his reafons for advertifing his wife. 
By order of the town. 

WM. CLARK, Town-Clerk. 
New-Bojion, March 26, 1776. 

There was a severity in public punishments 
which we of this day would hardly endure. 
The stocks, the pillory, and the whipping- 
post are too familiar to need detailed men- 
tion. One document in point we must make 



CHARACTER AND LIFE, 6/ 

— - — _ — . ^ 

room for, even though its date places it a Httle 
outside of the field we are especially view- 
ing :*- — 

Strong Licker to Exses. 

at a Cort holden at Farmino:ton In hartford County 

Janerary the 13: 1762 presant Jared Lee Just peace for 

sd County whearas David Culver of Farmington In sd 

County was atached and brought befouer Jared Lee 

Just-peace to answer unto one sertin Complaint Giv- 

enin In the Name and behalf of our Lord the King by 

obadiah Andrus Constabel to the sd Jared Lee Just 

peace the Complainant saith that the sd Culver was In 

the hous of Jonathan Root In Southington on the 20 

of October Last past and Did ther Drink Strong 

licker to Exses that he was Found Drunk In the Lane 

near Aaron websters and at his one plaes of abode 

beins: bereaved of the eues of his Reason and under- 

standing and Liins the sd David Culver pleads Gilty 

In Cort theirfouer Find that the sd Culver shal pay as 

a fine to the town tresuar of this town the sum of 

o — 8 — o Lawfull mony as Fine and Coast alowed 

^o — 3 — 6 mony whear of Execution Remains to 

be don ^o — 8 — o Fine Febuary the 6 1762 then 

Execution Granted on the o — 3 — 6 Cost the above 

judgment 

Feb 22: 1762 then Execution 

Returned satisfied 

obadiah Andrus Constabel 

of Farmington 

* Sketches of Southington, p. 410. 



6S REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

Slavery, it should be borne in mind, existed 
generally throughout the States, though the 
agitation of emancipation had a place in the 
counsels which attended the foundation of 
the government. How strange it is to read 
to-day of the buying and selling of slaves in 
New England a hundred years ago, and to 
find in the Boston papers of that time adver- 
tisements of runaway negroes. The follow- 
ing document is probably one of the last of its 
kind : — 

to all men to home these Presents come — greeting 
know yeae that I Josiah Campe of Milford in the 
County of Newhaven in the State of Connecticut for 
the consideration of Sixty Pounds Lawfull money Do 
Sell make over and conforme unto Abraham Clark of 
Milford in s'd county and state afores'd as my one 
Proper Estate on negro Boy named Handow Coggs 
thirteen yearse and During s'd negroo naturall Life 
and if said negroo Is set free within six yeare from 
this Date by the Laws of this state then I Josiah 
Camp Do bind my Self my heirs Executor or adminis- 
trator to Pay back to s'd Clark so much of s'd sum 
as shall be judged that s'd negroo hase not earnt and 
I Josiah Campe Do bind my Self my heirs executor or 
administrator formerly by these Presents to warrent 
and Defend s'd Clark from all Clame from aney Per- 



CHARACTER AND LIFE. 69 

son or Persons what so ever for s'd negroo whereunto 

I have Set my hand and sell this 30th Day of January 

Ad 1784. 

JOSIAH CAMP. 
In presents of witnesses 

Michael Pike, 

Nathaniel Tibbals. 

Fashions changed a hundred years ago as 
they do now, and perhaps it would be impos- 
sible to give an exact picture of the costumes 
of different classes at any one given time. 
But, in general, it may be said that gentlemen 
wore small-clothes, knee-buckles, and buckled 
shoes ; coats broad-skirted, wide-cuffed, and 
lace-ruffled, and of brown, gray, claret, or 
other color ; long waistcoats with broad flaps 
over the pockets, cocked hats, and in many 
cases wigs and powdered hair. The small 
sword was a common article of full dress, 
while scarlet cloth and gold and silver lace, 
with showy buttons, were resorted to by patri- 
cians on important occasions. The ladies 
made up their silks and satins and brocades 
into sacques and petticoats, hooped and 
trailed, set off with ruffles, and variously pat- 
terned and bedecked, according to the style 



70 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES, 

of the hour. They spent much time upon 
their hair, and the arrangement of the head- 
dress for the great party or the grand ball 
was a very complicated operation. One of 
these grand wardrobes — one that actually 
figured at some of Martha Washington's re- 
ceptions — has been thus recently described 
in public print, by a lady evidently fully capa- 
ble of appreciating its beauties and peculiari- 
ties : — 

The satin slip, as it was then called, or, as we 
should say, imder-skirt, was white, but it is now of a 
rich cream color at night ; in day-time it shows the 
discoloration of age. This slip is so narrow that it is 
a wonder how any woman ever walked with ease in it. 
Around the bottom is a simple row of very costly lace, 
of the kind known as Honiton. The over-dress is an 
India satin, Turkey red, as our ancestors had it. It is 
cut close to the form with a few gathers at the back, — 
a modern tie-back is nothing to it ; the queer old 
waist terminates just below the bust. It is rather 
diamond-shaped than square in the neck, with a fall of 
white lace, with which also the skirt of the " Turkey " 
is trimmed. The shoes are most singular. It seems 
as if no woman ever could have walked in them, but 
the soles show that they have been worn. They are 
of white satin, with the toe part sharpened almost to a 



CHARACTER AND LIFE. /I 

point, while the heel is placed in the centre of the 
sHpper ; the heel is about two inches high, and at the 
end resembles the stem of an inverted clay-pipe. 

These, and like these, were of course the 
fashions of the fashionable people of the cit- 
ies and of wealthy circles. The plain folks 
dressed in soberer styles. The soldiers of 
the Revolutionary army knew little of the 
splendors, or even of the neatness and com- 
fort, of uniforms ; and it is one of the humors 
of our own time to say that the original ulster 
overcoat was invented at Valley Forge, con- 
sisting of a bed-blanket with holes to put the 
arms through, and a mule-halter for a belt. 

Let it not be forgotten in this connection, 
that the Revolutionary soldier's miusket was a 
fire-lock, and that he carried not cartridges, 
but powder in a horn hung by his side. The 
tinder-box had not yet been superseded by 
the match-box, and flint and steel did exclu- 
sive service in kindling spark and flame. As 
for other marks of the stage which society 
had reached, we refer the reader to three items 
from Mr. Trumbull's " new edition " of " the 
Pilgrim's Progress," as follows : — 



72 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES, 

1770 Buys a home-made Wooden Clock. 
1774 Lights Boston streets with oil lamps; 
1780 Buys an Uinbrillo for Sundays ; and when- 
ever he shows it is laughed at for his effeminacy. 

Of amusements there was little variety in 
the olden time. Some of the domestic in- 
dustries were turned to good account for pur- 
poses of pastime ; and the husking-match, the 
quilting-bee, and the apple-paring gave the 
young people ample opportunity for the play 
of pleasant feeling. The " raising " was made 
a half-holiday for the men of all the neighbor- 
hood. Fencing was a manly accomplishment, 
and had its teachers in the cities and large 
towns. The ladies gave coffee-parties of an 
afternoon ; and a dinner-party of the elect 
was a very grand affair. An occasional con- 
cert enlivened the monotony of life, as thus:* 

At Concert Hall, on Thurfday the 22nd Inftant, 
will be a grand CONCERT of VOCAL and IN- 
STRUMENTAL MUSIC. Firft VioHn by Mr. Mor- 
gan, Harpfichord by Mr. Propert. The firft A61 will 
conclude with the celebrated Highland Ladie Con- 
certo ; and by particular Defire will be Sung, the 
Favorite Song of Mongo, out of the Padlock. 

* Boston Gazette, Monday, April 12, 1773. 



CHARACTER AND LIFE. Jl 

Tickets to be had of the Printers, at the Britifh 
Coffee Houfe, and at Mr. Propert's Lodgings, at 
Haifa Dollar each. To begin at Seven o'Clock. 

No Money to be taken at the Door. 

The first attempt at theatricals in Boston 
was made somewhere about 1750. It called 
out a law forbidding such amusements, and 
the town allowed no regular theatre until 
nearly the close of the century. That which 
the British maintained in Faneuil Hall in 
1775 was, of course, a forced exception to the 
rule. In New York, the case was different, 
where, at the opening of the Revolution, the 
little theatre on John Street had been minis- 
tering to the public want since 1767. Of a 
performance on the 25 th of January, 1777, 
Gaine's "Mercury" gives this account: — 

January 26. — Laft evening, the little theatre in John 
Street, in New York, was opened, with the cele- 
brated burlefque entertainment of Tom Thumb, writ- 
ten by the late Mr. Fielding to ridicule the bathos 
of feveral dramatic pieces that at his time, to the dif- 
grace of the Britifh ftage, had engroiTed both the Lon- 
don theatres. The characters were performed by 
gendemen of the navy and army. The fpirit with 
which this favorite piece was fupported by the per- 



74 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

formers, proves their tafte and ftrong conception of 
the humor. The performance convinces us that a 
good education and knowledge of polite life, are eflen- 
tially neceffary to conftitute a good a<5lor. The play 
was introduced by a prologue written and fpoken by 
Captain Stanley. We have great pleafure in applaud- 
ing this firfl effort of his infant mufe, as replete with 
true poetic genius. The fcenes painted by Captain 
De Lancey, have great merit, and would not difgrace 
a theatre, though under the management of a Garrick. 
The houfe was crowded with company, and the ladies 
made a brilliant appearance. 

The John Street Theatre was an unsightly 
building, painted red, standing some dis- 
tance back from the street, and approached 
from the sidewalk by a covered way. During 
the occupation of the city by the British, the 
theatrical company was stocked by inferior 
officers of the army and navy, who were glad 
to share the profits accruing from their per- 
formances, for the replenishment of their 
easily wasted purses. 

The objections which the theatre still en- 
counters in the minds of a considerable por- 
tion of the community were in the strongest 
possible force then. 



CHARACTER AND LIFE. 75 

Josiah Quincy, Jr., wrote of himself, on one 
occasion, as having been " much amused " 
by a performance which he witnessed at this 
John Street Theatre in 1773, but adds : "As 
a citizen and friend to the morals and happi- 
ness of society, I should strive hard against 
the admission, and much more the establish- 
ment, of a theatre in any State of which I 
was a member." 

Another curious instance of the public sen- 
timent of the time respecting the theatre, and 
not only that, but of the degree to which leg- 
islation undertook to regulate the conscience, 
is found in a vote of Congress passed on the 
1 6th of October, 1778, as follows : — 

Whereas frequenting play-houses and theatrical en- 
tertainments has a fatal tendency to divert the minds 
of the people from a due attention to the means nec- 
essary for the defence of their country and preserva- 
tion of their liberties, 

Resolved^ That any person holding an office under 
the United States, who shall act, promote, encourage, 
or attend such play, shall be deemed unworthy to hold 
such office, and shall be accordingly dismissed. 

In connection with the record of this vote. 



76 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES, 

in its issue of Nov. 2, 1778, the "New York 
Journal " relates the following pleasant in- 
cident : — 

The theatre being open laft evening, the Marquis 
de La Fayette being in company with his Excellency 
the Prefident of Congrefs, afked him to accompany 
him to the play. The Prelident politely excufmg him- 
felf, the marquis prefTed him to go. The Prefident 
then informed the marquis that Congrefs having that 
day palled a refolution, recommending to the feveral 
States to enadl laws for the fuppreffion of theatrical 
amufements, he could not poffibly do himlelf the honor 
of waiting upon him to the play. " Ah ! " replied the 
marquis, '* have Congrefs paifed fuch a refolution ? then 
I will not go to the play." 

The social dance and the public ball seem, 
after all, to have been the popular diversion. 
The dancing-master had employment even in 
staid and proper Boston. Thus:* — 

Dancing Academy. 

'T^HOMAS TURNER, begs leave to acquaint the 
-*■ PubHc, he has open'd a School oppofite William 
Vaflall's, Efq : to teach the elegant Art of Dancing in 
the molt improved Tafte, viz. Minuets, Cotillions, 
Hornpipes and Englilh Country Dances. — Thofe 

* The Boston Gazette, Monday, March 20, 1775. 



CHARACTER AND LIFE. 7/ 

Parents to whom it may be agreeable, to confer on 
him the Tutorage of their Children, may depend on 
fuch Care and Afliduity, as fhall prove greatly to their 
Advantage. — Any Gentleman or Lady not inclining 
to attend the publick School, fhall be waited on with 
Pleafure and Attention. 

The public ball, with the graceful minuet 
and the stately con,tra-dance, seems to have 
been the favorite form of demonstration in 
honor of festive anniversary and distinguished 
guest. When on one occasion La Fayette 
vi^as in Baltimore, on his way to the "front" 
at the South, a ball was tendered to him. 

" Why so gloomy at a ball .? " asked some 
belle of the evening, who had been struck 
with the soberness of the young French 
nobleman. 

" I cannot enjoy the gayety of the scene," 
was his reply, " while so many of the poor 
soldiers are without shirts and other neces- 
saries." 

" We will supply them," was the impulsive 
reply of the assembled ladies, who met next 
day to make up clothing for their suffering 
defenders. In this and other ways, the mere 



78 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

pleasure-seeking spirit of even those troublous 
times often met a just rebuke and was turned 
into wiser channels. 

Many stories have come down, pleasantly 
illustrative of the patriotic sentiments that pre- 
vailed. Nothing was commoner than for chil- 
dren to be named after Washington, Hancock, 
the Adamses, and other of the Revolutionary 
leaders. On a Sunday in July, 1776, the Rev. 
Mr. Perry, of East Windsor, Conn., had the 
distinguishing privilege of baptizing a child 
by the name of " Independence," — not proba- 
bly a solitary experience. But when about 
the same time a minister of Norwalk was 
called to baptize the child of a Mr. Edwards 
by the name of Thomas Gage, the neighbor- 
hood was aroused ; and " one hundred and 
feventy young ladies formed themfelves into 
a battalion, and with folemn ceremony ap- 
pointed a general and other officers to lead 
them on. This petticoat army then marched 
in the greateft good order to pay their com- 
pliments to Thomas Gage, and prefent his 
mother with a fuit of tar and feathers ; " * and 

* New England Gazette, May 30, 1776. 



CHARACTER AND LIFE, 79 

only the courage and valor of the innocent 
baby's sire seem to have thwarted the pur- 
pose of the expedition. 

Mr. Jacob Vredenburgh, barber, of New 
York, received the formal thanks of the New 
York Sons of Liberty, "for his firm, spirited, 
2ind patriotic conduct in refusing to complete 
an operation vulgarly called shaving, which 
he had begun on the face of Captain John 
Croser, Commander of the * Empress of Russia,' 
one of his Majesty's transports now lying in 
the river ; but most fortunately and providen- 
tially was informed of the identity of the 
gentleman's person, when he had about half- 
finished the job." 



8o REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

V. 

DOMESTIC CONCERNS. 

It must be remembered that life a hundred 
years ago was generally marked by great iso- 
lation. Outside of the few cities and leading 
towns, the population was never dense, and 
often just the opposite ; so that the house and 
home of the average family was in a measure 
shut up to itself. From the elegant mansions 
of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, to the 
rude log cabin of the settler in the backwoods, 
there was almost every variety of dwelling 
and infinite grade of establishment. Living 
not in communities, but separately, there was 
often a tendency to an elaborate completeness 
not called for in our time, when the refinements 
of science and the divisions of labor relieve 
the family from many of its old necessities. 
The average household must needs then keep 
itself up in a self-contained establishment. It 
killed its own pork and beef ; cured its own 



DOMESTIC CONCERNS. 8 1 

hams ; raised its own poultry ; made its own but- 
ter and cheese ; dipped its own candles ; did its 
own baking, of course ; spun its own yarn ; wove 
more or less of its own cloth ; cut and made its 
own garments ; " made and laid " its own car- 
pets, when it had any ; did much of its own 
tinkering ; often cobbled its own shoes ; doc- 
tored itself, except in critical cases ; instructed 
itself, up to a certain point ; amused itself with 
such things as it had : in short, centred its 
life about its home, and not about " society." 
All these necessities and habits consequently 
imparted to domestic scenes and experience a 
peculiar fulness and picturesqueness. Yet it 
was, after all, a very simple and easy life, un- 
vexed by much of the form and fuss insepa- 
rable from " modern conveniences." 

It would be pleasant to examine in detail 
a few out of the many grand establishments 
which were to be found in different parts of 
the country a hundred years ago. Not so fre- 
quent in New England, the central and south- 
ern portions of the country were yet full of 
them. The' colonial governors often lived in 
almost princely state; and the '* palaces" of 

6 



82 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

Governor Dunmore of Virginia and Governor 
Tryon of North Carolina are conspicuous ob- 
jects in the landscape. There was Sir William 
Johnston's " Hall," near the present village of 
Johnstown, N.Y, set down as the finest 
mansion in the province outside the city of 
New York, at the time of its erection in 1760, 
or thereabouts. And there were fine old 
manor-houses about Baltimore, through New 
Jersey, and along the Hudson, any one of 
which might detain us to our interest for an 
almost indefinite time. But it may be more 
to the reader's satisfaction to direct his atten- 
tion to one of the average houses of the people 
and to the every-day life of an ordinary home. 
Of architecture, let it still be remembered, 
there was little or none. The house was built 
simply and substantially, for use and not for 
display. The timbers were so large and so 
sound, that even the wear and tear of a 
hundred years have often left them unim- 
paired. Bricks were often imported from 
England. Windows were small, and the 
panes diminutive ; 6 X 8, 7 X 9, and 8 X 10, 
being the common sizes of French window- 



DOMESTIC CONCERNS. 83 

glass advertised for sale. The house was 
generally square, the walls of exceeding thick- 
ness ; the chimney rose massive and capacious 
in the centre ; the interior walls were pan- 
elled ; and the great oaken beams crossed the 
ceiling in plain sight. The centre of the 
house, and of the family life which it shel- 
tered, was the open wood fire, which blazed 
cheerfully in the huge fire-place of the living- 
room. Stoves were unknown ; and no furnace 
sent its currents of over-heated air to hall and 
chamber. Cooking was done in " tin kitch- 
ens," or on turn-spits, placed before the fire, 
or in pots hung by links and hooks from the 
swinging crane, or in the great brick oven 
which the chimney-work included on one side. 
The floor was bare, save the home-made rug 
or two in which the frugal housewife utilized 
her woollen rags. The tallow dip cast its dim 
light over the low-browed room. The tall 
clock ticked away in the corner, and the 
spinning wheel and hand-loom added their 
buzz and racket to the sum of the domestic 
sounds. The day began early and ended 
early. The morning chores required prompt 



84 REVOLUTIOXARY TIMES. 

attention ; and at night, after the amiful of 
wood had been brought from the shed, and the 
pail of water from the well in the yard, there 
was little to be done, and bed had no com- 
petitors. 

In one of our present Xew England papers,* 
a writer who calls herself ** Kathleen," and 
whose memory carries her far back towards 
the times which we are reviewing, has given 
us this picture of the interior of an old- 
fashioned kitchen : — 

It was a cheery, tidy room, with its open fire and 
numerous bake-ketdes in and about it ; tall dresser, 
with the long rows of plates and platters, and rack 
of spoons, that I am sure were far above my reach. 
Skillet and warming-pan hung near the fire ; the one 
flat-iron, tea-pot, and various other utensils hung upon 
pins or spikes driven in the chimney. Articles of 
clothing decorated the poles over head, while upon 
the side of a beam hung the trusty Queen's arm. To 
complete the picture was the mistress of the mansion, 
a woman in short gown and petticoat, kerchief over 
her shoulders, and a cap whose wide frill half covered 
her face. . . . Think of a slight, delicate girl, of these 
days, hanging a huge kettle on the crane, preparatory 

* The Vermont Watchman. 



DOMESTIC CONCERNS. 85 

to cooking a dinner or boiling the clothes. An odd 
sight, I fancy, it would be to see us flourishing the 
long-handled shovel or oven-broom while heating the 
brick oven for one of those bakings of brown-bread, 
beans, puddings, and pies. I am afraid our food would 
sometimes be over-done while we were learning the 
amount of fuel requisite. When dinner was over, the 
floor nicely swept, — not with a light corn-broom, how- 
ever, — imagine our finishing the day's work of spin- 
ning, or entering the loom and banging away for hours 
at a piece of checked flannel for winter wear, or some 
of those nice linen table-cloths t^at our grandmas 
used to make when they were girls like us. It seems 
to me that there was no place for delicate girls or 
invalids in those days. 

Children had a somewhat different place in 
the old social economy from that which they 
enjoy to-day. They did their full share of 
the domestic work, and found their recreation 
in sports of very rude description. They 
looked up to, and not down upon, their 
parents ; stood in wholesome awe of domes- 
tic law and authority ; walked softly before 
the parish minister ; and, in general, demeaned 
themselves in a way which would be one of 
the greatest of centennial curiosities, could it 
be reproduced in facsimile. A visit from the 



S6 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

minister was the signal for a catechetical ex- 
ercise, to which the young folks looked for- 
ward as their chief end. And on the Sabbath 
their natural and innocent activities encoun- 
tered stern repression. 

In the customs of courtship and marriage, 
there was much that was quaint, not to say 
amusing, when viewed in the light of the 
present day. Many anecdotes have come 
down very pleasantly illustrative of this phase 
of life and manners. Thus, it is related * of 
Gov. Mattjiew Griswold, of Connecticut, that, 
having fallen in love with his second cousin, 
Ursula Wolcott, he had neither the courage 
nor the resolution to declare himself, nor yet 
the skill to conceal the fact of his affection. 
The young lady, who seems to have returned 
his passion, was provoked by his procrastina- 
tion. Meeting him at last on the stairs one 
day, she determined, if she could, to bring 
matters to a pass. 

" What did you say, Cousin Matthew .'' " she 
asked. 

" I did not say any thing," was his reply. 

* Harper's Magazine, February, 1S76, p. 323. 



DOMESTIC CONCERNS. 8/ 

A few days after, meeting him again, she 
repeated the question in the same way, and 
got only a similar answer. Once again she 
met him, and asked : " What did you say, 
Cousin Matthew ? " And once again he re- 
plied : " I did not say any thing." " It is time 
you did ! " she then desperately responded ; 
and so the ice was broken. The wedding 
followed in due time. 

A story of similar spirit is on record of a 
young woman of Dr. Emmons's parish, who 
accepted an offer of marriage, on the one con- 
dition that her suitor should engage to attend 
the Quarterly Lecture. 

Thus reads a marriage notice in the " New 
England Chronicle," of Aug. 8, 1776 : — 

Married] at Portfmouth Mr. Benjamin Dearborn^ 
Printer, to Mrs. Lydia Hooper ; — a Lady highly 
qualified in every Refpe6l for rendering the Marriage 
State agreeable and happy. 

Would the reader like to see the wedding 
notice of John Hancock and Dorothy Quincy.'' 
Here it is as it appeared in the " New York 
Gazette," Sept. 4, 1775 : — 

This evening was married, at the feat of Thaddous 
Burr, Efq., at Fairfield, Connedlicut, by the Reverend 



S8 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

Mr. Elliot, the Hon.. John Hancock, Efq., Prefident 
of the Continental Congrefs, to Mifs Dorothy Ouincy, 
daughter of Edmund Ouincy, Efq., of Bofton. Florus 
informs us that "in the fecond Punic war, when Han- 
nibal befieged Rome and was very near making him- 
felf mailer of it, a field upon which part of his army 
lay, was offered for fale, and was immediately pur- 
chafed by a Roman, in a ftrong aflurance that the 
Roman valor and courage would foon raife the fiege." 
Equal to the condu6t of that illuftrious citizen was 
the marriage of the Honorable John Hancock, Efq., 
who with his amiable lady, has paid as great a com- 
pliment to Americajt valor, and difcovered equal patri- 
otifm, by marrying now while all the colonies are as 
much convulfed as Rome when Hannibal was at her 
gates. 

Not only weddings, but births, deaths, and 
even baptisms, were taken account of in the 
public press, and after a fashion which looks 
similarly strange. Here is aC specimen an- 
nouncement from the " Boston Gazette," Feb. 
22, 1773 • — 

Burials in the Town of Bofton fince our laft, Ten 
Whites, one Black. 

Baptiz'd in the feveral Churches Five. 

Funerals touched weddings at the point of 
feasting, and were often very expensive, showy, 



DOMESTIC CONCERNS. 89 

and pompous occasions. In some parts of the 
country, especially among the Dutch of Long 
Island and New York, it was the custom for 
a young man to lay by his earnings after 
coming of age, until a sufficient sum had 
accumulated to provide for him a " respect- 
able " funeral when he should come to die. 
Oftentimes the young burgher would reserve 
half of the portion of wine which he had 
liberally laid in for his marriage, to be used 
at the funeral of himself or his wife. Special 
invitations were sent out for funerals as for 
parties. The clergymen, pall-bearers, and 
physicians attending, were provided with 
scarfs and gloves, and sometimes each with 
a mourning ring ; while the feast which fol- 
lowed the interment at the house of the 
relatives of the deceased, elaborate with 
cold roast meats, wines, liquors, and pipes, 
was not unfrequently an occasion of coarse 
excesses, sometimes descending into hilarious 
and noisy demonstrations. A " respectable " 
funeral of this description might cost perhaps 
a thousand dollars ; while the funeral of the 
first wife of Hon. Stephen Van Rensselaer is 



90 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

said to have cost not less than twenty thou- 
sand dollars. 

We cannot give a better idea of what con- 
stituted a modest household and personal 
outfit in New England at this time than by 
copying an inventory, showing the division of 
a personal estate between the several mem- 
bers of a certain New Hampshire family. 
The original document from which it is 
printed is one the like of which could proba- 
bly be drawn out from a great many chests 
of old papers ; but just because' it is com- 
monplace is it all the more useful for our 
purpose. It is here printed verbatim, 

WEARING APPAREL 

JOSEPH 

Blew Great coat £\. lo 

blk. lasting Jacket 4. 6 

baize jacot 2. 6 

* breeches & buckles 2. 

Hatts, furr 10 

shirt 2 

shoes I 

Wigg 4 

£-2., 12. 4 

* The word is illegible in the manuscript. 



DOMESTIC CONCERNS, 91 

JACOB 

Baize Gown J[^. 10. 

Camblet Coat 10 

blk. Jacoat 15 

blk. lasting breeches 2. 

Shirt 2. 

Shirt I. 6 

2 caps I. 6 

Hatt 2. 

pr. Stockings 26 

sleeve buttons 2 

pr. mitts 8 

Thimble 

Gloves I 

^2 12 4 

Nathaniel 

old great Coat £. 8 

Blew coat .......... i8 

brown Jacoat 9 

brown briches 5 

shirt 2 

shirt 16 

lining Handchif 12 

Silk Handchif 2. 

pr. Stockings 2. 6 

pr. blk. Hose I 

Snuff Box 2 

wig I 

towards Gloves i 

;^2 12 4 



92 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

So much for the division of the wardrobe 
among the three sons. Now for the similar 
division of the household furniture between 



the three dau. 
Bedstead 


ghters : 

Bathsheba 


. / 


5 
6 


Chest . . . . 






wio^ box . 






6 


Candle stick . 






6 








2i 


Bed Tick . . 






■^2 
I 2 


Blanket . . . 






5 
6 


Coverlid . 






I sheet 






6 8 


2 pillow cases . 
I Spoon . 






2 

3i 
8 

3 

12 


I Knife & fork . 
chair Banister . 
cash in Will . 








Hannah 






I Bed . . . 


^2. 
. /l. 


9 

I 


Great Chair . 




• ^*« 


4 

3 
8 


I sheat 






Knife & fork . . 






& Spoon . 






3i 










^^ 


8 11^ 



1 



DOMESTIC CONCERNS. 93 

Rebecka 

Bed cord ;^o 28 

fire shovel & tongs 3 

Hand Irons id \\ 

Bellows 18 

2 pillows 6 

I Bolster 16 

I Sheat 6 Z 

I pr. Pillow cases 2 

3 pint Bason 2 

I Knive & fork 8 

a spoon 3^ 

£-2. 2 71 
Acct. of articles not divided. 

a pair of knee buckels. 

a pair of Garters. 

a book The Hosannahs of Children. 

a Funeral Sermon. 

People " lived well " a hundred years ago, 
their generally simple tastes being capable of 
easy and abundant satisfaction. Succotash 
was a favorite common food ; and the bill of 
fare of a gentleman's dinner in Falmouth in 
1774, recorded by John Adams, included 
these items : " Salt-fish and all its apparatus, 
roast chickens, bacon, pease, as fine a salad as 



94 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

ever was made, and a rich meat pie. Tarts 
and custards, etc., good wine and as good 
punch as ever you made." There were times 
and places, it is true, when and where a 
scarcity of good provisions was felt ; and 
there was an especial pinch in the commodity 
of tea, of which many patriotic people denied 
themselves altogether, and others bought only 
sparingly at large prices. " We are all learn- 
ing economy," wrote Franklin from Philadel- 
phia in 1775. "Instead of half-a-dozen 
courses to dinner, gentlemen content them- 
selves with two." 

Prices generally felt the pressure of the 
times ; and their attempted regulation by 
authority was only partially successful. An 
item suggestive on this point is the following 
from the " Essex Gazette " of April 25 — May 2, 

1775: — 

ASSIZE OF BREAD IN SALEM, March i, 1775. 

2-3ds, of a Penny white loaf . . . o lb. ^ oz. 10 d. 

a Penny white Loaf o 6 15 

a Two-penny ditto o 13 14 

A Four-penny ditto i 11 12 



DOMESTIC CONCERNS. 95 

In the town records of Farmington, Conn., 
under date of Jan. 30, 1775, appears this 
minute of a Committee of Inspection previ- 
ously appointed : * — 

Voted that Mr. James Persaville, Merchant of this 
Town, having bought and sold Goods higher than 
usual by his own Confession, has been guilty of a vio- 
lation of ye Association. 

That this Committee do upon a Confession made, 
and promise of Amendment by said Percival for his 
Fault in purchasing and selling sundry articles of Eng- 
lish Goods at higher prices than is consistent with ye 
true sense of ye Association, and upon his promising 
as far as he can to deposit ye surplussage of ye money 
over and above what they would have amounted to if 
sold at his usual Prices into ye Hands of such Person 
or Persons as shall by this Committee be appointed to* 
receive ye same to be appropriated to ye use of ye 
Poor of ye Town of Boston, and upon such Confes- 
sion and Retraction being made public restore sd 
Percival to full and compleat Charity. 

That if it has already or in time to come may hap- 
pen that any Person or Persons, Inhabitants of any of 
ye neighbouring Towns have refused or shall refuse 
to acceed to or in any Way or Manner violate ye do- 
ings of ye Continental Congress, it shall be ye duty of 
ye Inhabitants of' this Town to withdraw all kinds of 

* History of Southington, p. 525. 



96 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

connexion from such Person or Persons, and as Mem- 
bers of this Committee we will use our best Endeav- 
ours that ye Inhabitants punctually adhere to this vote 
and practice accordingly. 

That it is highly important that all Venders of 
Goods and Merchandize they have either disposed of 
since ye ist day of December 1773, or have now on 
hand, with their Number or other marks whereby 
said articles or any of them have been usually rank'd 
or distinguished, together with ye Prices they have 
sold them at for ready Pay and their usual Advance 
for Credit since ist day of December 1773, or do now 
sell them, and also ye Names of ye Persons any of 
such Goods or Merchandize have been- purchased of 
since ye first day of December, 1774, to ye Intent they 
may be in the most effectual Manner prevented sell- 
ing such Goods or Merchandize hereafter at higher 
^Prices than they have been accustomed to since ye 
above mentioned ist day of December 1773 Contrary 
to ye Association of ye Continental Congress, or if 
they should that they may be detected and brought 
to condign Punishment. 

That all Venders of Goods or Merchandize within 
this Town shall hereafter each for himself render a 
particular Account to three or more of this Committee 
being present to take such Account of every article of 
such Goods or Merchandize as shall be purchased by 
them and brought into this Town with their numbers 
or other Marks of Distinction, and likewise of ye 
Place where and ye Persons of whose said Goods or 



DOMESTIC CONCERNS. 97 

Merchandize were purchased before any of ye Pack- 
'ages thereof are broken, and it is expected ye Pur- 
chaser upon ye Receipt of any such Goods or Mer- 
chandize will notify three or more as aforesaid of this 
Committee to be present to take such account of ye 
true Intent and Meaning of this Vote. 

In Boston, under date of April 14, 1777, 
the Selectmen and Committee of Correspond- 
ence of the town, acting under legislative 
authority, published the following schedule 
of prices : * — 

COD Fifh and Haddock, guts and gills in. One 
Penny-out, Two Pence per Pound. 

Tom Cod and Flounders, One Penny half-penny 
per Pound. Hallaboat Three Pence per lb. Eels 
Ikin'd and gutted. Three Pence per Pound. 

Carting Wood from Wharves to the Buyer's Houfe, 
including every expence but the Firfl Coft, in confid- 
eration of the Wharfingers retailing in fmall Quantities, 
Five Shillings per Cord. 

Trucking a fingle Hogfheads, Two ShilHngs. 
Tierces in proportion. 

Trucking Barrels, a Load, 3 to a Load, Four 
Shillings. 

Carting or Trucking Merchandize, not included 
in Cafks, Four Shillings per Ton, and in proportion 
for a Quarter of a Ton. 

* The New England Chronicle. 
7 



98 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

Men's beft made Calf-fkin Shoes not to exceed 
Twelve Shillings a Pair. 

Boy's ditto in a juft proportion. 

Women's Leather Shoes, Six Shillings per Pair. 

Women's Cloth Shoes, Eight Shillings per Pair. 

Men's beft Beaver Hats, Forty-eight Shillings a 
Piece. 

Soap, good Merchantable, deliver'd at the Houfe 
of the Purchafer, Twenty Shillings per Barrel and one 
Penny three Farthings per fmgle Pound. 

Tallow dip'd Candles, Nine Pence per the Box and 
Ten Pence a fmgle Pound. 

Salt and Meadow Hay, Two Shillings per Hundred. 

Rice, Thirty Shillings per Hundred, Eight and Six 
Pence per Quarter, and Four Pence, per Pound. 

Loaf Sugar, One Shilling and Six Pence per the 
Quantity or fmgle Loaf. 

Vinegar, One Shilling per Gallon. 

Onions, Eight Pence per Half Peck, Fourteen 
Pence per Peck, Two Shillings per Half Bufhel, and 
Four Shillings per Bufliel. 

Carrots, Four Pence per Half Peck, Seven Pence 
per Peck, One ShiUing per Half Bufhel, and Two 
Shillings per Bufhel. 

Parfnips, Eight Pence per Half Peck, Fourteen 
Pence per Peck, Two Shillings per Half Bufhel, and 
Four Shillings per Bufliel. 

Turnips, Three Pence per Half Peck, Five Pence 
per Peck, Nine Pence per Half Bufhel, and One Shil- 
ling and Six Pence per Bufhel. 



DOMESTIC CONCERNS. 99 

Potatoes, Four Pence per Half Peck, Seven Pence 
per Peck, One Shilling per Half Bufhel, and Two 
Shillings per Bufhel. 

Eggs, Nine Pence per Dozen. 

Merchantable Hogfliead Hoops to be furveyM, 
Fourteen Foot long, at Twelve Shillings per Hundred. 

Ditto {horter than Eleven Foot, Nine Shillings ; 
Twelve Foot, Ten Shillings. 

Ditto Barrel Hoops to be furvey'd, Nine Foot long. 
Six Shillings per Hundred. 

Ditto fhorter than Nine Foot in proportion. 

Red Oak Hogfhead Staves, Three Pounds per 
Thoufand. 

White Oak Ditto, Six Pounds per Thoufand. 

Red Oak Barrel Staves, One Pound Eight Shil- 
lings per Thoufand. 

Clear Try'd Hogs Fat, Six Pence for any Quantity 
and Eight Pence by the fingle Pound. 

Merchantable Boards by Retail, Three Pounds per 
Thoufand. 

Clear feafon'd Boards, Three Pounds Twelve Shil- 
lings per Thoufand. 

Good Cyder clear drawn from the Lees, with the 
Barrel, Twenty Shillings, and without Seventeen 
Shillings. 

All Cord Wood from the Country, befides Oak and 
Walnut, to the Buyer Home, Twenty-fix Shillings per 
Cord. 

In Philadelphia, in August of the same year, 



lOO REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

prices were thus reported by John Adams in 
one of his letters to his wife : * — 

" Prices current, Four pounds a week for board, 
besides finding your own washing, shaving, candles, 
liquors, pipes, tobacco, wood, etc. Thirty shillings 
a week for a servant. It ought to be thirty shillings 
for a gentleman and four pounds for the servant, be- 
cause he generally eats t\yice as much and makes twice 
as much trouble. Shoes, five dollars a pair. Salt, 
twenty-seven dollars a bushel. Butter, ten shillings a 
pound. Punch, twenty shillings a bowl." 

The money system of the country, it should 
be remembered, was in a mixed condition. 
Not only was the English currency in use, 
but the colonies, and, later, the Continental 
Congress, had issued their paper notes of 
divers sorts. Fractional parts of a dollar 
were in circulation then as now. To a con- 
siderable extent all this paper money was 
counterfeited by the enemy, with the object 
of helping forward the work of subjugation, 
and it further suffered constant and enormous 
depreciation ; how great may appear from the 
following notice in the " New York Gazette," 
of October 28 : — 

* Familiar Letters, p. 301. 



DOMESTIC CONCERNS. lOI 

Wanted by a genfleman fond of curiofities, who is 
fhortly going to England, a parcel of Congrefs Notes, 
with which he intends to paper fome rooms. Thofe 
who wifh to make fomething of their flock in that 
commodity, fhall, if they are clean and fit for the pur- 
pofe, receive at the rate of one guinea per thoufand 
for all they can bring before the expiration of the pref- 
ent month. Inquire of the printer. N. B. — It is 
expefled they will be much lower. 



102 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 



VI. 
EDUCATION. 

At hardly any point does the America 
of 1776 present a stronger contrast to the 
America of 1876, than in respect to schools 
and education. There were colleges then, 
it is true ; but only nine of them, and only 
five that could be said to be in established 
and successful operation. The academies 
and higher seminaries with which the land 
is now so thickly studded were then al- 
most absolutely unknown. The necessity for 
schools preparatory to the college course had 
not begun to be felt, and of professional schools 
there was a corresponding scarcity. There 
was, however, a medical school in successful 
operation in Philadelphia, the eminent Dr. 
Benjamin Rush being one of its three pro- 
fessors. For the higher education of women 
almost no facilities existed. There was even 



EDUCATION. 103 



a prejudice against it, which had yet to be 
dispelled. 

The nine colleges above alluded to, with 
the dates of their foundation, were as fol- 
lows : — 

Harvard, Cambridge, Mass 1638 

William and Mary, Williamsburg, Va. . . . 1693 

Yale, New Haven, Conn 1700 

College of New Jersey, Princeton 1748 

Columbia, New York 1754 

Brown University, Providence, R.I 1765 

Dartmouth, Hanover, N.H 1770 

Rutgers, New Brunswick, N.J 1771 

Hampden Sidney, Hampden Sidney, Va. . . 1775 

Of these nine, the only five that were at 
this time really worthy of their name, as be- 
ing contributive to the intellectual life of the 
people, were Harvard, William and Mary, 
Yale, Princeton, and Columbia. The foun- 
dations of Dartmouth had just been laid in 
the midst of the woods, and amongst a pioneer 
population ; with log houses for its first build- 
ings, and four miles of desolate travel to the 
nearest human habitation. Yet in 1773 Dart- 
mouth counted its six graduates, and conferred 



I04 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

nineteen honorary degrees ! A graphic pict- 
ure of what college life meant and cost under 
these circumstances is supplied in the follow- 
ing paragraph of reminiscence, the reader 
merely needing to know in explanation that 
the mill referred to was one of the neces- 
sary appurtenances of this "college" in the 
woods :* — 

The mill man, Osborn, wrote to Joseph Vaill, a 
young man of Litchfield, to come up to Hanover " to 
obtain a college education, by helping him tend the 
mills ; " and Mr. Vaill tells us how he answered the 
call. He says he "started September 28, 1772, with 
three others, with packs on their backs, with an axe 
and otie horse, to find their way, as best they might, 
180 miles to the colleo^e saw-mill. We found the mills 
down in the woods, where the howling of wild beasts 
and the plaintive notes of the owl added to the gloomi- 
ness of the night season. We made ourselves bunks 
and filled them with straw, did our own cooking and 
washing," and, if you can believe it, they took in a 
boarder ! The price paid for sawing and sticking 
boards was one dollar a thousand, and half the toll 
for grinding. Upon this income we were ourselves to 
live and offset the board of Sophomore Osborn, one 
of the brothers, who became our teacher to fit us for 
college, and whose compensation was cancelled by his 

* The First Half Century of Dartmouth College, pp. 31, 32. 



EDUCA TION. 105 



boarding with us. We were two years fitting. One 
of our number died and another returned home ; but 
two others came on and filled their places, "so that 
the mill work, the boarding-house, and Sophomore 
Osborn's support should not fail. Mr. Vaill entered 
college, and says he studied in his cold home with 
pine knots for light, walked four miles a day to his 
recitations, facing a north-west wind, and often break- 
ing his own path in the new snows. It is marvellous 
I did not freeze, as I was thinly clad." 

Humorous as is the thought of a shower of 
honorary degrees bursting upon such a land- 
scape, there appears, perhaps by contrast, a 
singular stateliness and propriety in a corre- 
sponding act of " old " Harvard, then entitled 
to that epithet by reason of its already honor- 
able age of nearly one hundred and forty 
years ; which college, on* the third day of 
April, 1776, promulgated in sonorous Latin the 
decree of its Corporation, whereby General 
George Washington, on the very day before 
his departure from Cambridge to New York, 
was invested with its " highest honor ; " namely, 
the degree of Doctor of Laws. The document 
was published in full, both in Latin and in 
English, in the leading columns of the " New 



I06 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

England Chronicle," of April 25, following; 
from a stained and musty copy of which it is 
here reproduced to the eye of the curious and 
reverent reader : — 



THE CORPORATION of HARVARD COLLEGE 
in Cambridge, in New England, to all the Faithful 
in Chrift, to whom thefe Prefents fhall come, 
GREETING. 

TIC THEREAS Academical Degrees were originally 
^ * inftituted for this Purpofe That Men, eminent 
for Knowledge, Wifdom and Virtue, who have highly 
merited of the Republick of Letters and the Common- 
Wealth, Ihould be rewarded with the Honor of thefe 
Laurels ; there is the greatefb Propriety in Conferring 
fuch Honor on that very illuflrious Gentleman, 
GEORGE WASHINGTON, Efq ; the accompliflied 
General of the Confederated Colonies in America ; 
whofe Knowledge and patriotic Ardor are manifeft to 
all : Who, for his diftinguifhed Virtue, both Civil and 
Military, in the firft Place, being ele6led by the Suf- 
frages of the Virginians, one of their Delegates, exerted 
hi mfelf with "Fidelity and fmgular Wifdom in the cele- 
brated Congrefs of America^ for the Defence of 
Liberty, when in the utmoll Danger of being for ever 
loft, and for the Salvation of his Country ; and then, 
at the earneft Requeft of that Grand Council of 
Patriots, without Hefitation, left all the Pleafures of 



EDUCATION. 107 



his delightful Seat in Virginia, and the Affairs of his 
own Eftate, that through all the Fatigues and Dangers 
of a Camp, without accepting any Reward, he might 
deliver A^ew Englajid from the unjuft and cruel Arms 
of Britain, and defend the other Colonies ; and Who, 
by the moft fignal Smiles of Divine Providence on his 
Military Operations, drove the Fleet and Troops of 
the Enemy with difgraceful Precipitation from the 
Town of Bofton, which for eleven Months had been 
fhut up, fortified, and defended by a Garrifon of above 
feven Thoufand Regulars ; fo that the Inhabitants, 
who fuffered a great Variety of Hardfhips and Cruel- 
ties while under the Power of their Oppreffors, now 
rejoice in their Deliverance, the neighbouring Towns 
are freed from the Tumults of Arms, and our Univer- 
fity has the agreeable Profpe6l of being reflored to its 
antient Seat. 

Know ye therefore, that We, the Prefident and 
Fellows of Harvard College in Cambridge, (with the 
Confent of the Honoured and Reverend Overfeers of 
our Academy) have conflituted and created the afore- 
faid Gentleman, GEORGE WASHINGTON, who 
merits the higheft HONOR, DOCTOR of LAWS, 
the Law of Nature and Nations, and the Civil Law ; 
and have given and granted him at the fame Time all 
Rights, Privileges, and Honors to the faid Degree 
pertaining. 

In Teflimony whereof. We have affixed the com- 
mon Seal of our Univerfity to thefe Letters, and fub- 
fcribed them with our Hand writing this Third Day of 



Socii. 



1 08 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

April in the Year of our Lord one Thoufand feven 
Hundred Seventy-fix. 

r Si^illum "I 
LCommuneJ 

SAMUEL LANGDON, S.T.D. Praefes. 
NATHANIEL APPLETON, S.T.D. 
JOHANNES WINTHROP, Mat. et Phil. P. 
ANDREAS ELIOT, S.T.D. (Hoi. L L.D. 
SAML. COOPER, S.T.D. 

JOHANNES WADSWORTH, Log. et Eth. Pre. The- 
faurius. 

All the colleges suffered more or less 
during the Revolution. Harvard was turned 
out of its quarters in Cambridge in 1775, and 
obliged to adjourn temporarily to Concord. 
Yale met with corresponding interruptions, 
and held no public commencements from 
1777 to 1 78 1. Columbia's solitary building 
was appropriated by the British as a military 
hospital ; and the small but valuable library 
was dispersed, and in part destroyed, but few 
of the books ever finding their way back. 
There were no graduates from 1776 to 1784. 
Princeton suffered as much as either of the 
others, not alone in the loss of her resources, 
but in the interruption of academical exer- 



EDUCATION. 109 



cises ; the buildings having been used as 
barracks by the British. In the Battle of 
Princeton, Nassau Hall was occupied and de- 
fended by them until they were driven out by 
the Americans. 

The College of William and Mary was the 
wealthiest of the sisterhood up to the time of 
the Revolution ; but its resources were then 
greatly crippled. Here, in 1775, originated 
the fraternity of the Phi Beta Kappa ; and 
hence was derived the chapter at Harvard. 
The old records are still in existence. 

An examination of the Continental Con- 
gress, composed as it was of leading men of 
all the Colonies, affords some light upon the 
topic of popular education at that period. 
The Congress, whose sessions extended 
through some ten years, comprised in all 
some three hundred and fifty members, of 
whom about one-third were graduates of col- 
leges. A recent writer in one of the most 
intelligent and accurate of American jour- 
nals * has taken pains to collect and array a 
paragraph of important statistics upon this 

* New York Evening Post, January, 1876. 



no REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

subject, which we take leave to insert here, 
though without verification, that, however, be- 
ing hardly necessary for our present purpose : 

There were in the Continental Congress during its 
existence 350 members; of these 118, or about one- 
third of the whole, were graduates from colleges. Of 
these, twenty-eight were graduated from the College 
of New Jersey in Princeton, twenty-three from Har- 
vard, twenty-three from Yale, eleven from William 
and Mary, eight from the University of Pennsylvania, 
four from Columbia College, one from Brown Uni- 
versity, and one from Rutgers College, and twenty- 
one were educated in foreign universities. These 118 
graduates were distributed in the Colonies as follows : 
New Hampshire had four college graduates among her 
delegates, three of whom were graduated from Harvard, 
and one from Princeton ; Massachusetts had seven- 
teen, sixteen of whom were from Harvard and one 
from Yale ; Rhode Island had four graduates, — two 
from Princeton, one from Harvard, and one from 
Brown University ; Connecticut had eighteen grad- 
uates, — thirteen from Yale, three from Princeton, and 
two from Harvard. New York, out of her large dele- 
gation, had but eight graduates, — four from Columbia, 
and four from Yale. New Jersey had eleven grad- 
uates, — eight from Princeton, one from Yale, and one 
from Rutgers. Pennsylvania had thirteen graduates, — 
four from Princeton, four from the University of Penn- 



1 



EDUCATION. Ill 



sylvania, one from Yale, and four educated in foreign 
parts. Delaware had two graduates, both from Prince- 
ton, Maryland had seven, — three from Princeton, two 
from the University of Pennsylvania, one from Wil- 
liam and Mary, and one educated in foreign parts. 
Virginia had nineteen graduates, — ten from William 
and Mary, two from Princeton, and eight educated 
in foreign parts. North Carolina had four graduates, — - 
two from the University of Pennsylvania, one from 
Harvard, and one educated in foreign parts. South 
Carolina had seven graduates, — two from Prince- 
ton, and five educated in foreign parts. Georgia had 
five graduates, — three from Yale, one from Prince- 
ton, and one educated in foreign parts. Thus it ap- 
pears that Princeton had representatives from ten of 
the Colonies : Yale, from six ; Harvard, from five ; the 
University of Pennsylvania, from three ; William and 
Mary, from two ; and Columbia, Brown, and Rutgers, 
from one each. Fifty-six delegates signed the Decla- 
ration of Independence. Of these twenty-eight, or just 
one-half, were college graduates. 

If it may be said that the Continental Con- 
gress was as fairly a representative body in 
respect to intelligence and culture as the 
forty-fourth Congress, then it must be owned 
that the people of 1776 were a very intelligent 
and cultivated people, and turned such school 
and college advantages as they enjoyed to 
good account. 



112 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

Professional schools, as has before been 
said, were almost unknown. The candidate 
for the honors of the law, the dignities of 
the ministry, and, generally speaking, for the 
toils of medical practice, was obliged to pursue 
his studies under private teachers. The the- 
ological seminaries of the time were simply 
families of students grouped in the house- 
holds of famous and popular divines. One of 
the most celebrated of these came to be that 
of Rev. Dr. Emmons, of Franklin, which how- 
ever had only made its beginning in one of 
the years of the Revolution. 

As to schools of the common grade, the 
New England Colonies were in obvious ad- 
vance of the others ; but the system at its best 
was such that occasion offered for such pub- 
lic notices as this, for example : * — 

A Morning school. 

"VT'OUNG Ladies, or young Gentlemen, who have a 
■*■ Mind to be acquainted with the French Language ; 
to be perfefted in reading, fpeaking or writing the Eng- 
lifti ; — to be introduced to, or Compleated in their Im- 
provements, in Arithmetic, Penmanfhip, or Epillolary 

* New England Chronicle, July i8, 1776. 



EDUCATION. 113 



Writing, may be properly affifted in purfuing either of 
thefe Attainments, from 5 to 7 o'CIock in the Morn- 
ing, at the School on Court Square, oppofite the Eall 
Door of the State Houfe ; where Conftant Attendance 
will be given, and the moft ufeful Branches of Com- 
mon Education taught in the beft approved Manner. 

" On Morning Wings, how aHit/e /p rings the Mind f^ 



114 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 



VII. 
LITERATURE. 

The period of the Revolution was not 
greatly productive in literature, except of that 
special sort to which such a conflict and the 
peculiar experiences attendant upon it would 
naturally give rise. Patriotism held the pen, 
and politics and the incidents of the war fur- 
nished the themes. The people found their 
solid reading in such works of previous gen- 
erations and other lands as were at hand, and 
the times witnessed little more than the seed- 
sowing of future harvests. 

And yet there is a distinct literary tint in 
the many-colored picture of our country a 
hundred years ago. 

In the first place, many of the distinguished 
men who figure on other accounts in the 
scenes before us deserve honorable mention 
for their services in literature : Washino:ton 
and Jefferson, by their letters ; the Adamses, 



LITER A TURE. 1 1 5 

Otis, and Dickinson, by their pamphlets and 
poHtical essays ; Drs. Witherspoon, Stiles, and 
Mayhew, by their published sermons and ad- 
dresses ; and, notably, Rev. Dr. Emmons, by 
his "more than 7,000 copies of nearly 200 
sermons." The state papers of the period, 
especially of the years immediately preceding 
actual hostilities, have never been surpassed 
before or since, and can never cease to chal- 
lenge admiration. Francis Hopkinson of 
Philadelphia, who was one of the signers of 
the Declaration of Independence, has also 
this title to fame, that he was the author of 
" The Battle of the Kegs," a humorous bal- 
lad descriptive of an actual incident, and one 
of the best-known literary fruits of the Revo- 
lution. He distinguished himself by other 
writings, chiefly of a politico-satirical charac- 
ter, and achieved great popularity in his day. 
Hopkinson was brother-in-law to Rev. Jacob 
Duche, the patriotic chaplain to the Congress, 
who himself published some sermons, pam- 
phlets, and other small works. Ethan Allen 
was author as well as soldier, having written 
a telling account of his captivity in Canada. 



Il6 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

Charles Thompson, for many years the sec- 
retary of the Continental Congress, was a man 
of literary tastes and some literary achieve- 
ments ; the chief of the latter being a trans- 
lation of the whole Bible, which, however, 
did not appear until after the close of the war. 
Mr. Thompson had for a private pupil Wil- 
liam Bartram, a son of John Bartram, and now 
a young man of about twenty-five, destined 
to do some useful work as a botanical inves- 
tigator and author. While the war was in 
progress, he was in the South, gathering the 
materials for a volume on the natural features 
of that part of the country, which appeared in 
1 79 1. John Bartram, the father, was the 
author of "A Description of East Florida" 
(1766), but was just laying aside his pen at a 
good old age. A pretentious work on much 
the same subject, which appeared at New 
York in 1775, was the first volume of a " Nat- 
ural History of East and West Florida," by, 
one Bernard Romans. It was illustrated 
with copperplates and maps. The author 
followed it three years later with the first vol- 
ume of a work on the Netherlands, translated 



LITER A TURE. 1 1 / 

from Dutch historians and dedicated to Jona- 
than Trumbull. But in neither case did he 
go further than a first volume. 

The ballad literature of the Revolution 
formed a distinct school, and was the most 
original product of the mind and circum- 
stances of the period. These ballads found 
their way in great numbers to the public 
press, generally from anonymous writers, and 
were almost universally pointed with a polit- 
ical purpose. Every important event was 
celebrated in this way, and notable char- 
acters were applauded or satirized as they 
deserved. The collections of Du Simitiere 
and Freneau preserve the most characteristic 
of these extemporaneous effusions, and throw 
no little light upon the times. Freneau was 
himself one of the openly avowed and most 
meritorious of these Revolutionary singers. 
He was a young New-Yorker, of Huguenot 
descent ; and of his writings, both in prose 
and verse, several collections were published. 
Du Simitiere, who was also of French extrac- 
tion, but living in Philadelphia, was one of the 
antiquaries of his day, and exercised his lit- 



Il8 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

erary tastes by commencing as early as 1776 
a collection of materials for a history of the 
war, carefully cutting from the newspapers 
all news and other items relating to the prog- 
ress of events, and pasting them upon sheets 
of paper, under a proper system of classifi- 
cation. 

Freneau was born in 1752, which was also 
the birth-year of a number of other men who, 
in 1776, were beginning to make a mark in 
literature. Among these were Alexander 
Graydon, who carefully stored up his remi- 
niscences of the Revolution for a volume of 
"Memoirs," which he published in 181 1; 
Gouverneur Morris, author of the essays by 
" An American," published in the " Pennsyl- 
vania Packet," in 1780; Rev. William Linn, of 
New York, who published several volumes 
of eloquent discourses ; Mrs. Ann Eliza 
Bleecker, whose name is borne by a number 
of poems and tales ; and Rev. Timothy 
Dvvight, who became the president of Yale 
College, and was the author of the well- 
known hymn, " I love thy kingdom, Lord." 

The name of Dwight, who now, at a little 



LITER A TURE. 1 1 Q 

past the age of twenty, was just finishing his 
poem, " The Conquest of Canaan," suggests 
another interesting coincidence, and brings 
to view another circle of illustrious writers. 
D wight was a fellow, at Yale College, of 
David Humphreys, Joel Barlow, and John 
Trumbull, the four being friends and working 
much together. Humphreys came to wield 
a ready pen, which he turned to good ac- 
count, first in patriotic pleasantries, and later 
in the writing of a " Life of General Put- 
nam," which was one of the earliest of essays 
in American biography. Barlow had the 
honor of seeing his Commencement poem, 
*' The Prophet of Peace," printed the same 
year of its delivery, when he was but twenty- 
three ; but the greater and better part of his 
literary work, chiefly poetry, belongs to a 
later period. 

Trumbull's intellectual life and literary his- 
tory are exceptionally interesting ; his poem, 
" M'Fingal," being perhaps the most strik- 
ing of the literary remains of the Revolution. 
Trumbull, who was born in Watertown, Conn,, 
in 1750, passed his examination for admission 



I20 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

to Yale before he was eight years old, sitting 
on that occasion for the purpose in the lap 
of Dr. Emmons ; but happily he did not begin 
his course till six years later, which brought 
him into the notable company above men- 
tioned. After leaving Yale, he studied law 
with John Adams in Boston, and before he 
was twenty-five had written a political poem 
of some sixty or seventy stanzas, called " An 
Elegy on the Times." His " M'Fingal," 
which was begun in 1774 and finished in 1782, 
was undertaken at the instance of some of his 
political friends, as a piece of public service ; 
and, to take his own description of it, aimed 
to give a '' general account of the American 
contest, with a particular description of the 
character and manners of the times, inter- 
spersed with anecdotes, which no history 
could probably record or display ; and, with 
as much impartiality as possible, satirize the 
follies and extravagances of my [his] country- 
men as well as of their enemies." The poem 
had a great run, as such a burlesque would at 
such a period. More than thirty editions of 
it were printed, in all possible forms ; and it 
went everywhere. 



LITERATURE. 121 



'In 1775-76 there was published in Phila- 
delphia, by one Robert Aitkin, a Scotchman, 
a monthly periodical, called *' The Pennsyl- 
vania Magazine, or American Monthly Mu- 
seum." Thomas Paine was its editor, on a 
salary of ^£25 a year ; and among its contribu- 
tors were President Witherspoon and Francis 
Hopkinson. It was Paine's success at this 
post which drew from Dr. Benjamin Rush 
suggestions that led to his celebrated pamph- 
let, " Common Sense." Paine was the author 
not only of " Common Sense," probably the 
most famous and influential pamphlet in 
American history, but of a series of political 
tracts, under the general title of " The Crisis," 
eighteen of which appeared between 1776 and 
1783. Philadelphia had also a " United States 
Maga'zine," of which Hugh Henry Bracken- 
ridge wa's editor. Brackenridge was a graduate 
of Princeton in the class of 1771 ; and his com- 
mencement poem, on " The Rising Glory of 
America," achieved the distinction of print the 
year following its delivery. He also wrote 
a drama, entitled " Bunker's Hill," which was 
published in 1776. 



122 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

To the Revolutionary period belong the 
familiar lines — 

" No pent-up Utica contracts j^our pow'rs, 
But the whole boundless continent is yours ! " 

which occur in the epilogue to a tragedy, 
"Cato," written in 1778 by Jonathan M. 
Sewall, a lawyer of Portsmouth, N.H. At 
Dover, N.H., Dr. Jeremy Belknap was in 
the midst of his twenty years' pastorate, col- 
lecting, we may suppose, the materials for his 
invaluable History of New Hampshire, the 
first volume of which was published at Phila- 
delphia in 1784. Noah Webster had just en- 
tered Yale ; and, before the Revolution ended, 
had begun those labors which were to yield 
spelling-book and dictionary as their lasting 
fruit. 

Then, of other writers, there were Nathaniel 
Evans, of New Jersey, a collection of whose 
poems was posthumously published in 1772 ; 
Theodoric and Richard Bland, both Virginians, 
the former an occasional versifier, the latter 
a pamphleteer ; Dr. Benjamin Church, who 
impaired his growing fame as a spirited poet 



LITERATURE. 1 23 



by treasonable correspondence with the enemy, 
and was compelled to leave the country, the 
ship in which he sailed from Boston for the 
West Indies never being heard from ; Hannah 
Adams, who, though but twenty years old, was 
laying the foundations of learning and taste 
for her subsequent industrious and honorable 
literary career ; and finally Mercy Warren, 
one of the most truly and effectively patriotic 
women of the Revolution, author of several 
poems and tragedies, and in after years of a 
history of the war. 

The year 1775 saw the first number of 
Isaiah Thomas's New England Almanack. 
The first dramatic work -written in America 
was now about a dozen years old, having ap- 
peared in 1763. This was "The Prince of 
Parthia," a tragedy of considerable but un- 
even merit, its author being Thomas Godfrey, 
a native of Philadelphia. 

Perhaps the most curious chapter in the 
volume of Revolutionary literature was that 
furnished by the career of Phillis Wheatley, 
the " prodigy " of her times, and such not only 
by reason of her youth, but of her race and 



124 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

condition. She was a native African, had 
been brought to this country in 1761, was pur- 
chased in the slave-mart of Boston by the 
family whose name she bore, and was now 
only about twenty years of age. She mani- 
fested great intelligence, and acquired learning 
and accomplishments with astonishing rapidity 
and ease. Her poems, which were numerous, 
and extremely creditable considering her his- 
tory, were collected and published in a volume. 
One of them, addressed to Washington, read 
in connection with the correspondence which 
attended it, will give the reader a good idea 
of her powers, and of the place she held in the 
public esteem : — 

Phillis Wheatley to Gen. Washingtofi. 
Sir: 

I have taken the freedom to address your Ex- 
cellency in the enclosed Poem, and entreat your 
acceptance, though I am not insensible of its inaccu- 
racies. Your being appointed by the Grand Conti- 
nental Congress to be Generalissimo of the Armies of 
North America, together with the fame of your virtues, 
excite sensations not easy to suppress. Your gene- 
rosity, therefore, I presume, will pardon the attempt. 
Wishing your Excellency all possible success in the 



LITERATURE. 1 25 



great cause you are so generously engaged in, I am 
Your Excellency's most obedient humble servant, 

Phillis Wheatley. 



Providence, Oct. 26, 1775. 



His Excellency Gen. Washington. 

Celestial choir ! enthron'd in realms of light, 
Columbia's scenes of glorious toils I write. 
While freedom's cause her anxious breast alarms. 
She flashes dreadful in refulgent arms. 
See mother earth her offspring's fate bemoan, 
And nations gaze at scenes before unknown ! 
See the bright beams of heaven's revolving light 
Involved in sorrows and the veil of niorht ! 

The goddess comes, she moves divinely fair, 
Olive and laurel binds her golden hair : 
Wherever shines this native of the skies, 
Unnumber'd charms and recent graces rise. 

Muse ! bow propitious while my pen relates 
How pour her armies through a thousand gates, 
As when Eolus heaven's face deforms, 
Enwrapp'd in tempest and a night of storms ; 
Astonish'd ocean feels the wild uproar, 
The refluent surges beat the sounding shore ; 
Or thick as leaves in Autumn's golden reign, 
Such, and so many, moves the warrior's train. 
In bright array they seek the work of war, 
When high unfurl'd the ensign waves in air. 



126 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

Shall I to Washington their praise recite? 
Enough thou know'st them in the fields of fight. 
Thee, first in place and honours, — we demand 
The grace and glory of thy martial band. 
Fam'd for thy valour, for thy virtues more, 
Hear every tongue thy guardian aid implore ! 

One century scarce perform'd its destined round, 
When Gallic powers Columbia's fury found ; 
And so may you, whoever dares disgrace 
The land of freedom's heaven-defended race ! 
Fix'd are the eyes of nations on the scales, 
For in their hopes Columbia's arm prevails. 
Anon Britannia droops the pensive head, 
While round increase the rising hills of dead. 
Ah ! cruel blindness to Columbia's state ! 
Lament thy thirst of boundless powers too late. 
Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side, 
Thy ev'ry action let the goddess guide. 
A crown, a mansion, and a throne that shine. 
With gold unfading, Washington ! be thine. 

Washington's reply to this offering was as 

follows : — 

Cambridge, February 2d, 1776. 
Miss Phillis : 

Your favor of the 26th October did not reach my 

hands till the middle of December. Time enough, 

you will say, to have given an answer ere this. Granted. 

But a variety of important occurrences continually 

interposing to distract the mind and withdraw the 



LITERATURE. 1 2/ 



attention, I hope will apologize for the delay, and 
plead my excuse for the seeming but not real neglect. 
I thank you most sincerely for your polite notice of 
me, in the elegant lines you enclosed ; and however 
undeserving I may be of such encomium and pane- 
gyric, the style and manner exhibit a striking proof of 
your poetical talents ; in honour of which, and as a 
tribute justly due to you, I would have published the 
poem, had I not been apprehensive that, while I only 
meant to give the world this new instance of your 
genius, I might have incurred the imputation of 
vanity. This, and nothing else, determined me not 
to give it place in the public prints. If you should 
ever come to Cambridge, or near head-quarters, I 
shall be happy to see a person so favoured by the 
Muses, and to whom Nature has been so liberal and 
beneficent in her dispensations. I am, with great 
respect, your obedient humble servant, 

George Washington. 

The system of public libraries in the United 
States belongs exckisively to the present 
century ; and almost wholly to the third 
quarter of it, which is just now closed. A 
hundred years ago the only libraries that 
could properly fall under this designation, 
apart from the comparatively small collec- 
tions of the colleges, were the Society Library 



128 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

in New York, and the Library Company's in 
Philadelphia. The collection of books belong- 
ing to the latter was not a large or valuable 
one, though it enjoyed the patronage of 
Franklin. It was housed in Carpenters' 
Hall, and was open daily from 2 to 7 p.m. 
The librarian's salary was £,^0. The free 
use of the books was tendered to the mem- 
bers of the Congress. The Redwood Library 
was in existence at Newport ; and there was 
a Library Society in Charleston, S.C., now 
about thirty years old, which had accumu- 
lated a fund of a hundred thousand dollars, 
and at one time had a collection of from 
five to six thousand volumes. Most of the 
books were destroyed by fire in 1771. Private 
libraries there were, some of them large and 
valuable ; larger and more valuable in pro- 
portion, probably, than those of the present 
day. The parish library held a place of im- 
portance, which it has long since lost, and was 
often administered upon the circulating prin- 
ciple. Its contents were scarcely miscellane- 
ous in even the slightest degree, but almost 
wholly theological ; comprising the works of 



LITERATURE. 1 29 



English theologians, memoirs, standard his- 
tories, and volumes of sermons and religious 
essays. Conspicuous among these parish li- 
braries was that left with the Old South 
Church, Boston, by its then lately deceased 
pastor. Rev. Thomas Prince, and designated by. 
him as the " New England Library." Books 
were loaned with generous freedom from hand 
to hand, and in this way did wide and persis- 
tent service. In the large towns, circulating 
libraries upon the familiar plan, attempted to 
meet the popular want for a lighter litera- 
ture. One such had been established in 
Boston, by John Main, as early as 1764. 

In 1773, Mr. James Foster Condy, adver- 
tising in the " Boston Gazette " of July 8th 
a recent importation " of the moft efteemed 
Books," to be found on sale "at his Book- 
Store in Union Street, directly oppofite the 
Cornfield," specifies : 

... a very large 

AiTortment in 

Law — Phyfick — Hiftory — Divinity — Claflick — 
Navigation — Huf bandry — Agriculture, &c. 

9 



I30 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

ALSO 

A large Colle6Hon of Plays, Children's and Chap- 
man's Books, Bibles of every fize and Quality, Pfalters, 
Primers, Spelling Books, and Pfalm-Books — Grove 
on the Sacrament, Doddridge's Family Religion, a 
Poem entitled the Grave — Recovery from Sicknefs, 
Smith's Effay, Diflenting Gentleman's Anfwer, Town 
and Country, &c, &c. 

That mysterious "collection of books be- 
longing to a gentleman deceased," the pathetic 
announcement of whose sale draws tears from 
our eyes and money from our pockets so fre- 
quently in these later days, seems to be an 
old collection, for we find it advertised in the 
"Boston Gazette," of May 3, 1773. 

The American author was often his own 
publisher, and publishing was far from being 
the science into which it has since been 
developed. The following prospectus relat- 
ing to the publication of young Dwight's 
poem (see p. 119) indicates with what throes 
even poetic thought sometimes found deliver- 
ance into the printed page : * — 

* The New England Chronicle, March 14, 1776. 



LITER A TURK. 1 3 1 



Proposals for Printing by Subscription. 
The CONQUEST of CANAAN, 
A POEM, in nine books. 

I. This work will be Contained in twelve fheets, 
making upwards of 350 pages 12 mo. 

II. It will be printed with an elegant type, upon 
fine writing paper ; will be contained in one volume, 
delivered to the fubfcribers neatly bound, gilt and let- 
tered, at the price of one dollar. 

III. Thofe who fubfcribe for twelve, fliall have a 
thirteenth gratis. 

Subscriptions for the Poem, are taken in by J. 
Dunlap in Philadelphia, Mr. J. Holt, New York, Mr. 
W. C. Houflon, in Princeton, Mr. F. Barber, in Eliza- 
bethtown, Mr. J. Davenport, in Fairfield, Meffirs, Greens, 
in New Haven, Mr. F. Watfon, in Hartford, Mr. H. 
Hill, in Norwich, Mr. G. Olny, in Providence, the 
Printer of this paper, in Cambridge, Do(5lor J. Brackett, 
in Portfmouth, and by various other gentlemen in the 
principal towns on the Continent ; with all of whom are 
lodged papers, Containing a general account of the 
work. ... A further difcription, and fome fpecimens 
of it, will foon be publifhed in the Penitfylvania 
Magazine. 

But we must pass from books to another 
appliance of the intellectual life of the time. 



132 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 



VIII. 
THE PRESS. 

There were no daily newspapers in the 
time of the Revolution: Of some fifty papers 
which were born, and lived, or died, between 
1748 and 1783, all were weeklies or semi- 
weeklies. There were forty-three such in ex- 
istence at the end of the war. They were 
poor affairs, viewed in the light of the jour- 
nalism of to-day ; but, measured by their 
times, displayed considerable enterprise, and 
exerted an immense influence. It was their 
characteristic that they aimed not so much 
to print the news of the locality in which 
they were published as to bring to that 
locality news from distant parts of the 
country and of the world. In fact, the 
newspapers of the Revolution had compara- 
tively little to do with news of any kind. 
The gathering of it had not been reduced to 
a system. The publisher was his own editor 



THE PRESS. 133 



and reporter. There were no telegraph tolls 
to pay ; and, had there been, there would have 
been no money with which to have paid them. 
News travelled to the paper by private con- 
veyance. It was two roonths coming from 
Great Britain, and six months from Constan- 
tinople. That useful and widely known indi- 
vidual, " a gentleman of undoubted veracity," 
lived, however, in the country at that time, 
and rendered valuable services. The papers 
were filled with political sayings, satires, and 
lampoons. By many of them, the largest 
liberty of discussion was allowed ; and there 
were noticeable tendencies to the freest sort 
of speculation. Of journalism in the modern 
sense of the term, elaborated, enterprising, 
competitive, lavish in outlay, and presenting 
a field for the highest attainments and most 
carefully acquired professional skill, there was 
absolutely nothing. And yet we must accord 
to the journals of the Revolution, small, irreg- 
ular, struggling sheets that they were, the 
credit of a generally heroic spirit, and a very 
noble achievement in shaping the patriotic 
temper of the times. 



134 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

A number of newspapers were published 
in and about Boston, all but one of which, 
however, were suspended wholly or in part 
during the siege. This one survivor of the 
disturbances of 1775-76 was the "Massachu- 
setts Gazette and Weekly News-Letter," the 
organ of the Tories. The " Massachusetts 
Spy," now four years old, had been founded 
by Isaiah Thomas as a neutral sheet, but had 
become committed to the Revolutionary party. 
The prospectus which announced its appear- 
ance in July, 1770, gives so graphic a picture 
of a newspaper enterprise of the time, that we 
copy it in full, as quoted by Mr. Hudson : * — 

To THE Public 

It has always been cullomary for Printers and 
Publifliers of new periodical Publications, to introduce 
them to the World with an Account of the Nature and 
End of their Defign. We, therefore, beg Leave to 
obferve, That this fmall Paper, under the name of 
THE MASSACHUSETTS SPY, is calculated on 
an entire New Plan. If it meets with a favorable 
Reception, it will be regularly publifhed Three Times 
every Week, viz, Tuefdays^ Thurfdays and Saturdays 
(on two of which Days no News-Paper is publifhed 

* Journalism in the United States, p. 127. 



THE PRESS. 135 



in this Town) by which Means, thofe who favour this 
Undertaking with their Subfcription, will always have 
the moft material of the News, which may from Time 
to Time arive from Europe and from the other Parts of 
this Continent, on the Day of its Arrival, or the next 
Day following, (Sundays excepted) which will be 
fooner through this Channel than any other. Great 
Care will be taken in coUefting and inferting the freih- 
ell and choiceft Intelligence from Europe, and the ma- 
terial Tranfaftions of this Town and Province; Twice 
every Week will be given a Lilt of the Arrival and 
Departure of Ships and other Veffels, alfo a Lift of 
Marriages and Deaths, &c. and occafionally will be 
inferted felect Pieces in Profe and Verfe, curious Inven- 
tions and new Difcoveries in Nature and Science. 
Thofe who Choofe to advertife herein, may depend on 
having their Advertisements inferted in a neat and 
Confpicuous Manner, at the moft reafonable Rates. 
When there happens to be a larger Quantity of News 
and a greater Number of Advertifements than can well 
be contained in one Number, at its ufual Bignefs, it 
will be enlarged to double its Size at fuch Times, in 
order that our Readers may not be difappointed of 
Intelligence. 

This is a brief Sketch of the Plan on which we pro- 
pofe to publifti this Paper, and-We readily flatter our- 
felves the Public will honour it with that Regard the 
Execution of it may deferve ; and doubt not, it will be 
executed with fuch Judgment and Accuracy as to merit 
a favourable Reception. 



136 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

Then there was the " New England Chron- 
icle," published by Powars and Willis, at one 
time in Boston, at another time in Cambridge, 
and then again in Boston ; besides sustaining 
the rather intimate relation of both conse- 
quent of, and antecedent to, the " Essex Ga- 
zette," of Salem ; and further appearing at 
one time under the name of the ** Indepen- 
dent Chronicle." There was also the " Inde- 
pendent Ledger and American Advertiser," 
founded in 1778; the ''Continental Journal 
and Weekly Advertiser," first issued in May, 
1776; and the " Boston Gazette," which lat- 
ter, dating back as far as 1766, was the chief 
organ of the Revolutionary Party. To all of 
these patriot papers Samuel Adams, John 
Adams, James Otis, Joseph Warren, and 
others of the republican leaders in Boston, 
were constant contributors. 

Let us look over a copy of one of these old 
papers ; and, for the value of the associations 
of the date, let it be " The New England 
Chronicle," of July 4, 1776. It is " Vol. VIIL 
Numb. 411," and bears the imprint : "BOS- 
TON : Printed by POWARS and WILLIS, 



THE PRESS. 137 



at their Office oppofite the new Court 
House, Queen-Street." It is a four-page 
sheet, about ten inches by fifteen, three col- 
umns to a page. There are no rules between 
the columns. The first column of the first 
page contains a proclamation of General 
Washington, offering a bounty of lands to 
soldiers and officers of the army ; the second, 
a brief resolution of the Congress, and short 
extracts from letters from Lewistown, Balti- 
more, and New York ; the third, a communi- 
cation from some anonymous correspondent 
relating' to Dr. Price's new work on Civil Lib- 
erty. Following this, upon the second page, 
come advices from Williamsburg, Philadel- 
phia, New York, Hartford, Providence, and 
Watertown, with half a column of advertise- 
ments. Two columns of the third page are 
occupied by further advices from New York 
and other points relating to the progress of 
the war, and the third column is divided 
between more advertisements and a legal 
notice signed " Tim. Pickering, Jun." One- 
half of the fourth page is again given up to 
advertisements, and the other to despatches 



138 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

from London reporting the proceedings of 
Parliament. There is no editorial matter ; 
and, it may be added, no telegraph " specials " 
from Philadelphia, foretelling the Declaration ! 

Outside of Boston, the New England papers 
of the time were *' The New Hampshire Ga- 
zette," which was founded at Portsmouth in 
1756, and has continued to the present day 
without interruption or change of name ; a 
" New Hampshire Gazette," started in 1775 ; 
the "Norwich Packet" (1773); the "Hart- 
ford Courant " (1764) ; the " Connecticut Jour- 
nal and New Haven Post Boy" (1767); the 
"Connecticut Gazette" (1773), successor to 
the "New London Gazette" (1758) ; and the 
"Newport Mercury" (1758), of which James 
Franklin was the publisher. Vermont's paper, 
the " Vermont Gazette, or Green Mountain 
Boy," was not started till 178 1. 

New York being occupied by the British 
during the greater part of the year, only four 
papers were continued through the period, 
three weeklies and one semi-weekly ; the 
publication being so arranged that there was 
a paper every day in the week except Sunday 



THE PRESS. 139 



and Tuesday. The semi-weekly was " Riv- 
ington's Royal Gazette," and it was the lead- 
ing one of the four. All had the sanction of 
the British authorities, and were in the hands 
of the Tories. " Rivington's Gazette " was 
very outspoken in its opposition to the patri- 
ots, and expressed its sympathies for the 
royal cause in the strongest terms. It is 
said that several hundred copies of each issue 
were regularly sent to Boston in 1775, to be 
distributed in General Gage's army. The '' Ga- 
zette's " three companions were " Gaine's Mer- 
cury, the " Royal American Gazette," and the 
" New York Mercury." The patriot papers 
were driven out of the city by the entrance 
of the British. The " New York Journal, or 
General Advertiser," (1767), removed to 
Poughkeepsie, and the " New York Packet 
and American Advertiser" (1776) to Fishkill. 
Albany had a " Post-Boy." 

In New Jersey there was a " New Jersey 
Gazette" (1777) and a '* New Jersey Journal" 
(1778), the latter published at Chatham. 

In addition to the " Pennsylvania Chroni- 
cle and Universal Advertiser," which had 



I40 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

been published in Philadelphia since 1767, no 
less than five other papers were started in 
that city during the very first year of the 
Revolution, one of them a German sheet. 
Further south was the '* Maryland Journal 
and Baltimore Advertiser," whose first num- 
ber, under date of Aug. 20, 1773, contained 
an advertisement of George Washington's, 
offering for lease twenty thousand acres of 
land on the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers. Two 
"Virginia Gazettes " were published in Wil- 
liamsburg, Va., with one of which Jefferson 
had much to do. In this it is said that the 
Declaration of Independence was first pub- 
lished on the 26th of July. Still further 
south there were the " North Carolina Ga- 
zette " at Newbern, the " South Carolina and 
American General Gazette" of Charleston, 
and the " Georgia Gazette " in Savannah. 

It is impossible at this distance to realize 
the difficulties which attended newspaper 
publication a hundred years ago. The great- 
est of them grew out of the scarcity of paper 
occasioned by the war. Not only was paper 
scarce, but rags were scarce ; and the only 



THE PRESS. 141 
J 



paper-mill in New England in 1769 had to 
appeal to the people to save every scrap, after 
this fashion : — 

Advertisement. 

The Bell Cart will go through Bofton before the 
end of next month, to colle6l Rags for the Paper-Mill 
at Milton, when all people that will encourage the 
Paper Manufactory, may difpofe of them. They are 
taken in at Mr. Caleb Davis's fhop, at the Fortifica- 
tion ; Mr. Andrew Gillefpie's, near Dr. Clark's ; Mr. 
Andras Randall's, near Phillips's Wharf; and Mr. 
John Boies's in Long Lane ; Mr. Frothingham's in 
Charleftown ; Mr. Williams's in Marblehead ; Mr. 
Edfon's in Salem; Mr. John Harris's in Newbury; 
Mr. Daniel Fowle's in Portfmouth ; and at the Paper- 
Mill in Milton.* 

This difficulty seems to have been no less 
ten years later, when the " Massachusetts 
Spy " again, as quoted by Mr. Hudson,! con- 
tained the following touching and irresistible 
appeal : — 

Cash Given for Linen and Cotton and Linen 
Rags, at the Printing Office. 

It is earneftly requefbed that the fair Daughters of 
Liberty in this extenfive Country would not negle(5l to 

* News-Letter, March 6, 1769, as quoted in "Journal- 
ism in the United States," p. 114. t lb. p. 115. 



142 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

ferve their Country, by faving for the Paper-Mill, all 
Linen and Cotton and Linen Rags, be they ever fo 
fmall, as they are equally good for the purpofe of mak- 
ing paper, as thofe that are larger. A bag hung up in 
one corner of a room, would be the means of faving 
many which would be otherwife loft. If the Ladies 
fliould not make a fortune by this piece of economy 
they will at lead have the fatisfaftion of knowing 
they are doing an effential fervice to the Community, 
which with Ten Shillings per pound, the price now 
given for clean white rags, they mull be fenfible will 

be a fufificient reward. 

Isaiah Thomas. 

The subscription price of the " New Eng- 
land Chronicle " was six shillings and eight 
pence per annum. Happy the printer who 
received his pay in money and with prompt- 
ness. The following advertisement from the 
"New York Journal," in August, 1777, bears 
on this point : — 

The printer being unable to carry on his bufmefs 
without the neceffaries of life, is obliged to affix the 
following prices to his work, viz. : For a quarter of 
news, 12 lbs. of beef, pork, veal, or mutton, or 4 lbs. 
of butter, or 7 lbs. of cheefe, or 18 lbs. of fine flour, 
or half a bufhel of wheat, or one bufhel of Indian 
corn, or half a cord of wood, or 300 wt. of hay, or 



THE PRESS. 143 



other articles of country produce as he fliall want 
them, in like proportions, or as much money as will 
purchafe them at the time ; for other articles of print- 
ing work, the prices to be in proportion to that of the 
newfpaper. All his cuftomers, who have to fpare any 
of the above, or other articles of country produce, he 
hopes will let him know it, and afford him the necef- 
fary fupplies, without which his bufmefs here muft 
very foon be difcontinued. 

There is something suggestive in the very 
names which many of these old papers bore, 
names which hold a meaning strikingly illus- 
trative of the methods of communication in 
use. Now we call our papers Telegraphs, 
Expresses, and Mails ; then they were News- 
Letters, Packets, and Post-Boys. 

The newspaper was not the only instru- 
ment for influencing public opinion. The 
pamphlet held a place midway between the 
cumbersome book and the transient journal ; 
and this light artillery of the political ord- 
nance of' the war was in constant use and did 
invaluable service. Such a pamphlet was 
Thomas Paine's " Common Sense," already 
referred to, which was published early in 
1776, attained an enormous circulation, and 



144 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

exerted a powerful influence in shaping the 
public mind in favor of independence and con- 
federation. The hand-bill, too, and the broad- 
side, as well as the ballad, were favorite 
weapons of thought, and gave a swift and 
easy currency to the invectives and satires 
which would hardly have found expression in 
more formal ways. 



CHURCHES AND CLERGY. I45 

IX. 
THE CHURCHES AND THE CLERGY. 

The American people at birth were em- 
phatically a religious people. All sects of the 
Christian Church had a foothold in the coun- 
try, though their relative importance, meas- 
ured by the number of congregations and 
value of property, was very different from now. 
Not only all the States, but all the leading 
communities, were distinctively Protestant. 
The Methodists and Roman Catholics, which, 
in numbers and wealth, substantially lead all 
the other denominations to-day, were then 
at the other extreme of the list, the formal 
organization of neither having taken place 
until after the Revolution. The order com- 
plete was as follows : Congregationalist, Bap- 
tist, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Lutheran, 
German Reformed, Dutch Reformed, and 
Roman Catholic. As a whole, the Congrega- 
tionalists, the Baptists, and the Presbyterians 

10 



146 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

were warmly on the side of independence ; 
the EpiscopaUans, *as generally, in sympathy 
with the mother country. Exceptions of 
course there were on both sides. In shaping 
the views of the conflict and moulding the 
character which wrought them out so suc- 
cessfully, the patriot pulpit wielded a power- 
ful influence. The political sermons of the 
New England clergy were printed in pam- 
phlet form and scattered far and wide ; and 
the Church, carefully dissevered from the 
State, was yet both brain and heart thereto, 
at the time when the condition of the latter 
was a question of life and death. The Meth- 
odists and Roman Catholics were too few 
and feeble to play any distinctive part in the 
contest. The Congregationalists were strong- 
est in New England, of whose broad and firm 
institutions th'ey had laid the foundations 
more than a century before. The Episco- 
palians were similarly strong in New York, 
and the Presbyterians in New Jersey and 
Philadelphia ; the Baptists were feeling their 
way down into Virginia, and planting there 
the seeds of the thick growth that has since 



CHURCHES AND CLERGY. 1 47 

sprung up through all the South. John Mur- 
ray, the father of Universahsm, was just 
beginning his American ministry in New 
Jersey, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. 
The Quakers were in force in Philadelphia. 
The eccentric sect of the Sandemanians was 
establishing itself obscurely in some of the 
inland towns of Connecticut. The only Epis- 
copal clergyman w4io remained in Philadelphia, 
after its evacuation by the British was Dr. 
William White, who had continued to pray for 
the King up to the time of the Declaration, 
and then with a good grace submitted to the 
new order. He it was who was afterward 
consecrated first Episcopal bishop of Penn- 
sylvania. 

Throughout the entire country the minister 
was largely charged with the general dissem- 
ination of intellectual influence. His min- 
istry was not restricted, as it is now, to the 
mere preaching of sermons and pastoral care. 
There was much more for him to do then. 
More was expected of him. He did more. 
How much is well set forth in the words 
that follow : — 



148 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

The clergyman not only sanctified and cemented 
the parish, but he founded the State. It was his instruc- 
tion which moulded the soldier and the statesman. Liv- 
ing among agriculturists, remote from towns, where 
language and literature would naturally be neglected 
and corrupted, in advance of the school-master and the 
school, he was the future college in embryo. When 
we see men like Marshall graduating at his right hand, 
with no other courses than the simple man of God who 
had left the refinements of civilization for the wilder- 
ness taught, and with no other diploma but his bene- 
diction, we may indeed stop to honor their labors. 
Let the name of the American missionary of the colo- 
nial and revolutionary age suggest something more to 
the student of our history than the limited notion of a 
combatant with heathenism and vice. He was also the 
companion and guide to genius and virtue. When the 
memorials of those days are written, let his name be 
recorded, in no insignificant or feeble letters, on the 
page with the great men of the State whom his talents 
and presence inspired.* 

The ranks of the clergy of the Revolution 
included many stalwart and noble characters, 
as well as some that were amusingly eccentric. 
There was President John Witherspoon of 
Princeton College, where he was the succes- 

* Duyckinck's Cyclopedia of American Literature, vol. i. 
p. 421. 



CHURCHES AND CLERGY. 149 

sor of Jonathan Edwards, a lineal descendant 
of John Knox, and now about fifty years of 
age ; Dr. Duffield, ten years younger, and 
since 1771 the pastor of Old Pine Street 
Church in Philadelphia, where he made him- 
self so conspicuous for devotion to the patriot 
cause, that a price was put upon his head ; 
Mr. Duche, the worthy and patriotic* Episco- 
palian of Philadelphia, who, by offering extem- 
pore prayer in his capacity as chaplain to 
the Continental Congress, verified Samuel 
Adams's assurance that he was no bigot, 
and astonished those delegates who were 
" dissenters ; " Dr. Auchmuty, who ended 
his twenty-nine years ministry over Trinity 
Church in New York in 1777, and by his 
loyalty to both the Church and State of Eng- 
land earned the degree of Doctor of Divinity 
from the University of Oxford ; and Dr. Sea- 
bury, also of New York, loyalist, and after the 
Revolution consecrated the first Bishop of 
the Episcopal Church in the United States. 
At Elizabethtown, N.J., was the Rev. James 
Caldwell, a Presbyterian, of Huguenot de- 
scent, who, in the attack by the British upon 



150 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

Springfield, supplied the patriot soldiers with 
hymn-books from the church for wadding, ex- 
claiming, " Now, boys, give them Watts ! " He 
it was whose wife was so cruelly murdered by 
the British, while surrounded by her nine chil- 
dren. At New Haven, Dr. Ezra Stiles had 
just succeeded to the presidency of Yale Col- 
lege. At Cambridge, Dr. Langdon presided 
over Harvard. In Boston, Dr. Charles 
Chauncy was drawing to the close of 'his 
sixty years ministry over the First Church, 
and the First Baptist Church at the North 
End had for its pastor Rev. Dr. Stillman. 
Dr. Samuel Cooper, pastor of the Brattle 
Street Church, was pre-eminently the leading 
Boston clergyman of the day. He, too, was 
a political writer, and an active associate of 
the Adamses. 

The odd genius of the Boston pulpit, or 
one such, was Mather Byles, who was the 
first pastor of the HoUis Street Church, and 
one of the few clergymen of New England 
who adhered to the Crown during the Revo- 
lution. There is almost no end to the stories 
illustrating his wit, which was of a sort that 



CHURCHES AND CLERGY. 151 

chiefly expressed itself in quips and puns. 
Thus, when one day he descried a couple of 
the Selectmen with their chaise mired in the 
unkempt street before his house, he said to 
them, " Well, gentlemen, I am glad to see you 
stirring in this matter at last." 

In character and career. Rev. Dr. Emmons, 
of Franklin, Mass., was one of the most 
marked men of his times ; yet his life was in 
good measure a representative one, and the 
story of it lets us well into a view of the New 
England interior of the time. He was a man 
of methodical habits, as most all the fathers 
were. He divided his days by inflexible rule, 
rising, eating, working, exercising, and retir- 
ing at fixed hours, which changed not. In 
those ordinarily placid days, there were few of 
the interruptions which now make a regular 
routine so diflicult, if not impossible. For 
more than half a century he sat in the same 
chair in his study, and to look about the room 
was to see at once the spot where his feet in- 
variably rested. The wood must be laid on his 
fire jtcst so, the wood-box be replenished at 
such a time, the visitor must enter and depart 



152 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

by a time-table, and every peg had its ap- 
pointed duty. 

Stern as was the faith, and rigid as was the 
practice, of these old divines, there was much 
humor in their composition, and on occasion 
they could crack a joke with anybody. Dr. 
Mather Byles was not the only punster of his 
times. 

It was a formidable matter then, when pas- 
torates often lasted a lifetime, to "call" a 
minister. The church, quite likely, took an 
entire day for its action, making the important 
occasion a season of special fasting and prayer. 
It was not an uncommon thing for an ordina- 
tion service to be held, weather permitting, in 
the open air, meeting-houses not always being 
large enough to accommodate the curious and 
reverent throngs which would assemble thereto 
from all the regions roundabout. The com- 
mon range of a minister's salary in the inland 
towns of New England was from ;^250 to ^400 
a year. This was pieced out by a gift at set- 
tlement, and occasional donations afterward, 
and sometimes supplemented by grants of 
cord-wood or other produce from the farms of 



CHURCHES AND CLERGY. 1 53 

his parishioners. Happy was he who received 
his stipend promptly and in substantial money ! 

The meeting-houses of both town and coun- 
try suffered greatly during the war. Such as 
fell into the hands of the British were dese- 
crated without scruple, and some of them were 
plundered or even altogether destroyed. Those 
which were spared by war have been wasted 
by time, and few specimens of the class 
remain. 

The old representative meeting-house was 
a huge ungainly block, cubical, or nearly so, 
two stories in height, furnished within with 
galleries, and without with a stunted tower. 
The pulpit was lofty, reserved, and imposing, 
befitting the position of him who occupied it. 
In front was " the deacons' seat," where re- 
posed these worthies in visible emblem of 
ecclesiastical order and authority. Over the 
pulpit was the sounding-board, so suspended 
as to reflect the preacher's voice and send it 
forth the better to his hearers. The pews were 
large square boxes, or pens, close-doored, 
high-walled, and railed around the top. Here- 
in the families of the congregation gathered, 



154 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

each by itself, half of each group obliged, of 
course, to sit with back to the preacher. The 
allotment of pews was often a matter not of 
individual choice, but of parish arrangement ; 
and the " seating committee " under the latter 
had a difficult and delicate work to perform. 
No common heat was provided in winter, the 
individual foot-stove being the only source of 
warmth. Cushions and carpets were ** vanity." 
The Sabbath services were long and tedious, 
the two of morning and afternoon coming 
close together, with only a brief intermission 
between, which there was no Sabbath school 
to occupy. The scarcity of paper often com- 
pelled the minister to preach from a manu- 
script so closely written that the use of a 
magnifying glass, to decipher it as he read, 
was necessary. There was no public read- 
ing of the Scriptures. 

Church music deserves here a paragraph 
by itself. There had been little or no popular 
instruction in the art of song, and there was 
a very limited knowledge of sacred tunes. 
Watts's " Psalms and Hyms," '* Tate and 
Brady's Collection," and the now famous "Bay 



CHURCHES AND CLERGY. 1 55 

Psalm Book," were the only hymn-books in 
common use ; and the word ''common" must 
here be used in a very restricted sense. The 
hymns were usually "lined" out by one of 
the deacons, and the introduction of books 
into church use was effected only after violent 
opposition. The printing of sacred music 
had but just begun. Billings's singing-book, 
which appeared in 1770, was the first original 
publication of its kind in the country ; and, de- 
fective though it was, it led to a revolution in 
the methods of public praise. Armed with 
this weapon, the church choir rose into a rec- 
ognized position; and the "lining" deacon, 
tenacious of his privileges to the last, was 
compelled to subside. The new system was 
however long looked upon with suspicion ; 
and instruments, even the sedate bass-viol 
and the docile fiddle, had to fight their way 
to respectability. The curious pitchpipe was 
depended on to start the tune ; and as for the 
noble organ, that was looked upon in some 
quarters as " an instrument of the devil for 
the entrapping of men's souls," and as such 
was for a long time excluded from good eccle- 
siastical society. 



IS6 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

An important and interesting adjunct of 
the meeting-house, in some parts of the coun- 
try, was the ** Sabba'-Day House." Comfort, 
being carefully shut out of the meeting-house 
itself, was only thus rudely provided for in 
such subordinate structures. The Sabba'- 
Day House was a family affair, generally com- 
prising but a single apartment, perhaps fifteen 
feet square, with windows and a fire-place. 
It was very plainly and sparsely furnished. 
Chairs for the old people and benches for the 
children stood round the walls, and a table in 
the centre might hold the Bible and a few 
religious books and pamphlets ; while at one 
side shelves contained dishes for cooking and 
eating. Sometimes the Sabba'-Day House was 
mounted above a shed, within which the horse 
could be sheltered. A group of such cabins 
standing about the meeting-house added not 
a little to the picturesqueness of the spot, and 
their use conduced greatly to the convenience 
and comfort of Sabbath worship, especially 
in winter. The family able to keep a Sabba'- 
Day House drove directly thither on Sabbath 
mornings, warmed themselves up by a hot 



CHURCHES AND CLERGY. 1 5/ 

fire without, and quite likely by a hot drink 
within ; and here spent the intermission, with 
further wholesome regard for the wants of the 
inner man. The better class of these Sabba'- 
Day Houses were whitewashed, some of them 
were double, and to the truth of history it 
must be said that between Sabbaths they oc- 
casionally furnished the wild young men of 
the parish with secure haunts for unseemly 
carousals. 

Thanksgiving and Fast were the chief public 
religious days. A feature of the religious life 
of Boston was the Thursday Lecture, which 
on one occasion of Washington's attendance 
was followed by an "elegant dinner at the 
Bunch of Grapes Tavern, Provided at the 
Public Expenfe, when Joy and gratitude fat 
on every countenance and fmiled in every eye." 
Washington, it should be said, though a com- 
municant of the Church of England, displayed 
a spirit of the truest catholicity in relig- 
ious matters. When in Morristown, N.J., 
learning that the sacrament was to be ob- 
served in the Presbyterian Church upon the 
following Sabbath, he called upon its pastor, 



158 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

Rev. Dr. Jones, and asked whether communi- 
cants of another denomination would be per- 
mitted to join. 

" Most certainly," was the reply : " ours is 
not the Presbyterian table, General, but the 
Lord's ; and hence we give the Lord's invita- 
tion to all his followers, of whatever name." 

" I am glad of it," said Washington : " that 
is as it ought to be ; but, as I was not sure of 
the fact, I thought I would ascertain it from 
yourself, as I propose to join with you on that 
occasion. Though a member of the Church 
of England, I have no exclusive partialities." 

Some of the most picturesque and truly 
historic churches of the country were those 
of its central and southern portions. Here, 
for instance, was the Dutch church of Flat- 
bush, Long Island ; a stone edifice in the 
form of a parallelogram, sixty-five feet by 
fifty, square-roofed, and holding a bell in its 
small steeple. The gallery across its eastern 
end was divided into two sections, one set 
apart for the slaves, the other for poor whites 
and strangers. Its windows were of small 
stained glass, set in lead ; and under the build- 



CHURCHES AND CLERGY. 159 

ing were vaults for the burial of the dead. In 
Virginia, seven miles south-west from Mount 
Vernon, stood Pohick Church, to us now of 
special sacredness as having been the place 
of Washington's attendance. Its recent sore 
dilapidations hav^e been repaired, and the hon- 
ored edifice is in a measure restored to its old 
condition. In its prime, it was a plain but 
stately house, unecclesiastical in its appear- 
ance, but dignified by an elaborate pulpit, and 
fitted with the square pews of the time with 
seats upon their three sides. 

In South Carohna, in the village of Dor- 
chester, the home of the Massachusetts colo- 
nists, was the Old White Meeting-House, 
long since abandoned ; and in the same town 
St. George's Church, a pretentious, cruciform 
building of brick, with Gothic windows, to 
which the ladies drove of a Sunday morning 
in their chaises, convoyed by gentlemen on 
horse-back, with swords hanging by their 
sides. 

There are many of these ruined churches 
of a hundred years ago now scattered through 
the South, and it were well if present impulse 



l6o REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

should lead to their recovery and preserva- 
tion. 

The clergy of Revolutionary times, it should 
be remarked again, as we take leave of them 
and of their churches, were men of great in- 
telligence and unsurpassed influence ; and 
much more distinctly a class by themselves 
than now. They were regarded with a rever- 
ence, not to say awe, wholly foreign to the 
mind at this present day. The meeting- 
houses in which they preached were the true 
cradles of national liberty and virtue ; and 
their own figures are among the noblest and 
most striking in all the group of worthies now 
passing in review. 



PROFESSIONS AND TRADES. l6l 

X. 

PROFESSIONS AND TRADES. 

The industrial interests of the country were 
chiefly agricultural. Manufactures had only 
just begun to feel the impulse of the troubles 
with the mother country, and, with the im- 
mense mechanical developments of the pres- 
ent century yet far in the future, were in 
their earliest infancy. The New England 
farm and the Southern plantation were the 
representative investments of the people in 
the tillage of the soil. 

A recently published letter of General Rich- 
ard Montgomery, of Revolutionary fame, gives 
an interesting account of his farm in West- 
chester, N.Y., as it stood in 1773. It was 
doubtless, in the general, a fair sample of pos- 
sessions of this description. It consisted of 
about seventy acres, with fresh and salt 
meadow in uncommon proportion, and a good 
orchard. The seven acres of salt meadow 

II 



1 62 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

were mostly covered with black grass, con- 
sidered "a very great source of improvement 
to the farmer." The nearly nine acres of 
fresh meadow once constituted a rich black 
swamp, which had been drained at consider- 
able expense. The woodland, embracing 
about the same area as the meadow, was 
swampy, and susceptible of being as easily 
transferred into meadow. The advantages of 
excellent fish and oysters to be had near by 
were esteemed an important consideration. 
The dwelling-house (which had just been new- 
roofed) was on the "eastern road," and con- 
veniently situated for an inn or a store, either 
of which enterprises was much " wanted in 
that part of the country ; " while the prem- 
ises further afforded " a very fine situation 
for a gentleman to build upon," the neighbor- 
hood being " desirable," and but fifteen miles 
from New York. For this property the owner 
asked the price of ;£650, though he inti- 
mated that his " bottom price " would be 
;£6oo. 

The thrifty farmer in these times had the 
benefit of neither agricultural newspaper nor 



PROFESSIOA^S AND TRADES. 1 63 

agricultural society. He thought out his own 
theories, if he ventured into theories at all. 
If he were of independent and courageous 
habit, he was just beginning to experiment 
with artificial fertilizers. If he had been pros- 
perous, and had acquired lands and stock in 
abundance, he would let out portions of the 
former on shares, and some of the latter by the 
six months or the year, receiving hire for his 
cows in cheese and butter. He usually kept 
two or three hired men all the year round, 
and sufficient *' extra " hands during the sum- 
mer, receiving them to his table, and treating 
them in all respects as members of his family. 
Twenty pounds was a price in 1776 for a six 
months' term of labor ; a price that expressed 
in part the increase of the demand over the 
supply, and, in part, the depreciation of the 
currency. Dr. Wheelock, breaking ground for 
Dartmouth College in the New Hampshire 
wilderness, paid his men three or four shillings 
a day ; and the kitchen girl received about the 
same amount a week. 

The necessities of the war created some 
rude manufactures of saltpetre, powder, and 



1 64 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

weapons small and great ; but for the most 
part trades were confined to the production 
of small-wares for domestic use, — tin, wooden, 
and of similar description. In the " New 
England Chronicle," of June i, 1775, Mr. 
John Clarke " Begs leave to inform the Pub- 
lic, that he is removed from the Manufactory 
in Bofton to Concord, about a Quarter of a 
Mile Eaft of the Meeting-Houfe, on the great 
Road to Bofton, where he carries on the But- 
ton-making Bufinefs as ufual, and hopes the 
Favour of his Former and other Cuftomers. 
Good ftrong Buttons with iron Eyes and Bot- 
toms for Six Shillings O. T. per Dozen with 
the following Motto, — Union and Liberty in 
all America. N.B. Said Clarke makes any 
Quantity of Buttons on timely Notice, as 
cheap and as good as thofe in London." 

The lady-reader may like to take a peep 
into a shop of the period, as depicted in the 
following advertisement in the " New England 
Chronicle," for Aug. 24, 1775 : — 

BROADCLOTHS. 

There is for Sale, at BICKER'S Shop, in Cam- 
bridge, near the Houfe formerly improved by Mr 
Bradifh, as a Tavern, 



PROFESSIONS AND TRADES. 1 65 

A Fine Aflbrtment of blue, and other colour'd Broad 
Cloths, with Trimmings to match, with a good Affort- 
ment of Checks, Linens ; filk, cotton and hnen Hand- 
kerchiefs, Bed-Ticks, Corduroys, striped Hollands, 
Velvit and Velverets, Ratteens, Serges, Diapers, Cam- 
bricks, Lawns, worfted Hose. Breeches Patterns of 
moft Colours, Cambleteens, Sewing Silks, Twift, 
Threads, Buckrams, Quality Binding, Crewels, Tapes, 
Needles, Pen and Jack Knives, Shoe and Knee Buc- 
kles, Felt Hats, Loaf Sugar by hundred or less, Lynn 
Shoes, Ribbons Nonefopretties, gold and silver Lace, 
gold Buttons and Loops, fuitable for Hats, with a vari- 
ety of other Articles. 

The legal profession shared the eminence 
of the ministerial, and was then as now a path 
to fame and fortune. Judges held court in 
circuits, and the lawyers travelled with them. 
" The country," wrote John Adams, from 
York, Me., in 1774, "is the situation to make 
estates by the law." And in proof of the 
affirmation he cites the case of John Sullivan, 
of Durham, N.H., "who began with nothing, 
but is now said to be worth ten thousand 
pounds lawful money, his brother James al- 
lows five or six, or perhaps seven, thousand 
pounds, consisting in houses and lands, notes, 



l66 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

bonds, and mortgages. He has a fine stream 
of water, with an excellent corn-mill, saw- 
mill, fulling-mill, scythe-mill, and others, in 
all six mills, which are both his delight and 
his profit." It certainly could not have been 
by his proper professional fees alone that the 
lawyer of that time grew rich. Eight dollars 
was a common fee in an important case, five 
for a jury argument, and smaller sums for 
smaller services. In North Carolina, the legal 
fee for drawing a deed was one dollar; to 
charge five, as some of the leeches of the pro- 
fession did, was an outrageous extortion. 

An interesting feature of legal life in New 
York was a club of lawyers, known as " The 
Moot." Its regular meetings were devoted 
to the discussion of professional questions 
purely. Its first president was William Liv- 
ingston ; and its first secretary, Samuel Jones, 
was succeeded by Mr. Jay. The elder mem- 
bers of the bar participated with the younger 
in the proceedings of " The Moot," and a feel- 
ing of entire fraternity prevailed among all. 
No one was allowed to introduce political 
topics of the province, and to persist in such 



PROFESSIONS AND TRADES. 167 

an offence was to invite expulsion. Great 
weight was attached to the opinions enounced 
in the meetings, so great as to constitute it 
almost " a court of last resort." 

This glance at the professional occupations 
of the people would be imperfect without a 
tribute to the painters of the period, the list 
of which includes names that must remain 
forever pre-eminent in the history of Amer- 
ican art. The skilled engravers of the coun- 
try could be counted on the fingers of one 
hand with two fingers to spare, the famous 
Paul Revere being chief among them. He it 
was who engraved the plates in 1775 for the 
paper money ordered by the Provincial Con- 
gress, and afterwards for the first issue of 
Continental money directed by the general 
Congress. The circle of painters was more 
numerous, and the works which they have 
left are among our most highly prized memo- 
rials of Revolutionary times. Portraiture was 
the favorite field of achievement, with an 
occasional attempt at historic groups and 
scenes. 

Easily at the head of American artists at 



1 68 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

the time immediately preceding the Revolu- 
tion was John S. Copley. Copley lived in 
Boston, where he was born ; his estate on 
Beacon Street, now marked by the Somerset 
Club House, being one of the largest and 
finest in the town. He is described as a 
handsome man, of showy tastes ; and his 
striking portraits were eagerly sought for by 
all the old families. He had few early advan- 
tages and little training, and his successes 
were purely the fruits of real genius. As the 
war came on, greatly to the interruption of 
his work, he removed to England ; but he left 
behind him the productions of many busy 
years, which are scattered " from Maine to 
Georgia." To own a family Copley is almost 
a patent of American nobility. His portraits 
were usually large, painted with considerable 
regard to drapery and costume, and, if open 
to criticism as inclining to stiffness, were 
remarkable for their coloring. 

Charles W. Peale, the father of Rembrandt 
Peale, a Marylander, was returning from Eng- 
land, where he had spent several years in 
study, at just about the time that Copley was 



PROFESSIONS AND TRADES. l6g 

going thither ; and, having first served briefly 
in the American army, settled in Philadel- 
phia, and in a measure succeeded to Copley's 
place and fame. He had been a pupil of 
Copley's before going abroad. John Adams, 
visiting his studio in 1776, found therein a 
large variety of portraits and sketches. Peale 
painted no less than fourteen portraits of 
Washington, and had for sitters so large a 
number of the public men of the time as to 
suggest to him the formation of a national 
gallery. His residence in Philadelphia was 
greatly promotive of the taste for the fine arts 
in that city. 

Then there were John Trumbull, who also 
studied with Copley, and who had for his 
studio in Boston the very room which Smi- 
bert, a still earlier artist of considerable fame, 
had consecrated by his brush ; the eccentric 
Gilbert Stuart, who was with Trumbull a 
pupil of Benjamin West in London, and like 
Trumbull was at only the beginning of his 
artistic life a hundred years ago ; and Ben- 
jamin West himself, who though an Amer- 
ican, and belonging to this period, lived so 



I/O REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

long abroad that he hardly belongs to this 
group of American painters. And of minor 
artists there were not a few, many of whose 
portraits still hang in the old houses of the 
land. 



NOTABLE MEN AND WOMEN 171 



XL 



THE MEN AND WOMEN OF THE REV- 
OLUTION. 

Our survey of Revolutionary times would 
be incomplete without a rapid glance at 
some of the prominent people who adorned 
them, and who helped to make them what 
they were. We have mapped out the country, 
enumerated the important cities and towns, 
and travelled about among them. It remains 
to ask : Who distinguished those interesting 
localities by their residence 1 Who beside 
the clergy were the men of public influence ? 
Who were attending the old churches and 
reading the old newspapers 1 

There are two groups of notabilities who 
stand projected against the scenes and events 
of 1776, one military, the other civilian ; and, 
as it is a time of war, we will take the former 
first. 



1/2 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

The pre-eminent military personage of 1776 
was of course General George Washington. 
Washington was now forty-four years of age. 
He exceeded six feet in height, and his com- 
manding physical presence was paralleled by 
a noble and dignified mien. His face was 
pitted with the small-pox, but exhibited strong 
features and a florid complexion. His eyes 
were blue, and his hair was brown. Bodily, 
mental, and moral qualities, each of the high- 
est excellence, blended in him in striking 
harmony and symmetry. He possessed im- 
mense physical strength, an indomitable cour- 
age, and a moral sense of singular purity. 
His power of self-control was remarkable, 
when it is considered how deep and powerful 
were the passions of his nature. His per- 
sonal habits were irreproachable ; a judicious 
temperance giving tone to his whole life. His 
military uniform was a blue coat with buff 
facings, buff waistcoat and breeches, rich 
epaulets, and a handsome small sword. He 
also carried a pair of pistols, and sometimes 
wore across his breast, between his coat and 
waistcoat, a light blue ribbon. His personal 



NOTABLE MEN AND WOMEN. 1 73 

tastes were simple and unostentatious ; but he 
nevertheless ordered his official life and com- 
posed his military household with consider- 
able form and etiquette. 

A prominent, if not the foremost, place by 
the side of Washington belonged to General 
Nathaniel Greene, now but thirty-six years 
old ; a man rather above the common size, 
with a tendency to corpulency in his figure ; 
of fair and florid complexion ; of gentle dis- 
position and serene in manner. Then there 
were General Artemas Ward, whose connec- 
tion with the army closed this year, he being 
at the age of forty-nine ; General John Stark, 
the hero of the Battle of Bennington, aged 
forty-eight ; General Israel Putnam, forty- 
eight ; General Horatio Gates, forty-eight ; 
General Charles Lee, the eccentric English- 
man, forty-five ; General Philip Schuyler, forty- 
three ; General John Sullivan, thirty-six ; and 
General Henry Knox, one of the most brilliant 
as he was one of the youngest of the Revolu- 
tionary officers, twenty-six. A no less dis- 
tinguished place in this group belonged to 
Montgomery, who had fallen at Quebec in 



1/4 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

December, 1775 ; had he hved, he would now 
have reached his thirty-eighth year. 

The foreign officers were a set by them- 
selves. Lafayette, now but nineteen years 
of age, was accounted one of the handsome 
men of the army. His forehead receded, his 
features were small and delicate, and a promi- 
nent feature was -his deep red hair. The 
Baron Steuben was a much older man, being 
forty-five. So was De Kalb, who was about 
forty-four. Pulaski was thirty-nine, while 
Kosciuszko was but thirty. 

Looked at together, the striking character- 
istic of all these Revolutionary officers is their 
youthfulness, their average age being a trifle 
under forty. 

Turning now to the civilians, the eye first 
rests perhaps upon Benjamin Franklin, the 
oldest as he was the greatest of them all ; a 
man of strong and well-knit frame, in stature 
an inch or two short of six feet, of light com- 
plexion and gray eyes, and with hair hanging 
thickly upon his shoulders. At his right 
hand we may place the short, stout, and sturdy 
John Adams, only forty-one, of prominent 



NOTABLE MEN AND WOMEN. 1 75 

forehead, benignant eye, firm mouth, and ear- 
nest expression ; and at his left the magnetic 
Jefferson, who when he penned the immortal 
Declaration was but thirty-three years of age, 
tall, graceful, red-haired, and blue-eyed. The 
famous Samuel Adams was older than these 
last associates, having reached the age of fifty- 
four; a man of common size, but of muscu- 
lar form, erect, fair, and serious in manner. 
Alexander Hamilton, again, was the youth 
among the statesmen, being not twenty years 
old when his public debates and powerful 
pamphlets began to give him an influential 
place among the Revolutionary leaders. 
Hamilton was under rather than above the 
middle size, spare in figure, graceful in move- 
ment, and courtly in manner ; his general air 
one of uncommon delicacy and refinement. 
John Hancock, President of the Continental 
Congress, whose signature first subscribes 
the Declaration, was but thirty-nine, a man 
of fine presence and polished address. Then 
there were stern Roger Sherman, one of the 
eiders, fifty-five, and Oliver Wolcott, fifty, both 
of Connecticut ; the elegant Philip Livingston, 



176 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

of New York, sixty ; Robert Morris, of Penn- 
sylvania, forty-three ; Caesar Rodney, of Del- 
aware, forty-six ; Samuel Chase, thirty-five, 
and Charles Carroll, thirty-nine, both of Mary- 
land ; Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, forty- 
four; Edward Rutledge, of South Carolina, 
twenty-seven ; and Button Gwinnett, of Geor- 
gia, forty-four. All of these last-named 
were signers of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence. Dr. Witherspoon, of New Jersey, an- 
other important member of the Continental 
Congress, was a man of impressive personal 
appearance ; and his strong Scotch accent and 
ardent manner gave great charm to his public 
utterance. Charles Thompson, the notable 
secretary of the body, was a tall and well-pro- 
portioned man, but spare in countenance, and 
crowned with erect white hair. Associated 
with the foregoing in the Congress, but by 
intention not a signer of the Declaration, was 
John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, better known 
as '' The Farmer," under which soubriquet 
he wrote much and influentially in favor of 
the war. He was now forty-four years old. 
And there were other men of power and mark 



NOTABLE MEN AND WOMEN. I// 

not included with the distinguished represen- 
tatives who met at Philadelphia : such as the 
pre-eminent Patrick Henry, of Virginia, most 
powerful of all the orators of the Revolution, 
now forty years of age, a tall, spare, awk- 
ward-looking man, whose presence, when in- 
flamed with the fire of his genius, yet became 
majestic and imposing; Jonathan Trumbull, 
of Connecticut, now sixty-six, the great " war 
governor" of his time, on whom Washington 
relied as "one of his main pillars of support ;"* 
Christopher Gadsden, of South Carolina, one 
of the most zealous 'of the patriots, now fifty- 
two ; Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, of the 
same State as Gadsden, a captain in the regi- 
ment of which Gadsden was colonel, like him 
a man of lofty character and elegant tastes, 
and now just thirty years of age ; and David 
Rittenhouse, of Philadelphia, a man of a sci- 
entific turn, whose Revolutionary services were 
of a peaceful and philosophic character, now 
forty-four. 

* It is said that the designation '* Brother Jonathan," as 
applied to the personified American people, grew out of 
Washington's frequent remark concerning Governor Trum- 
bull : " Let us hear what brother Jonathan says." 

12 



178 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

Last of all there was that group upon whom 
the shadows rest: including Benedict Arnold, 
who was only thirty-six at the time of which 
we speak ; and Aaron Burr, who was then but 
twenty, and only four years out of Princeton 
College. 

With a few exceptions, the women of the 
Revolution are to be spoken of more conven- 
iently in the mass than as individuals. Mrs. 
Mercy Warren, whose name has already had 
mention upon the literary page, was foremost 
among the intellectual representatives of her 
sex ; and her scholarship, patriotism, and 
strength of character gave her really a com- 
manding position. Her correspondence was 
extensive, and her counsel was frequently 
sought in private by the statesmen in conduct 
of affairs. Mrs. General Knox, who was a 
daughter of Thomas Flucker, a royal secretary 
of Massachusetts, was a conspicuous figure, 
no less for her vigor and independence of 
mind and originality of habit, than for her 
imposing personal appearance and dignified 
address. She was a recognized leader in 
society, and turned her admitted ascendency 



NOTABLE MEN AND WOMEN 1/9 

to good account ; but regretted, it is said, in 
after years her engrossment with public af- 
fairs, declaring that, if she could live her life 
over again, she 'Svould be more of a wife, 
more of a mother, more of a woman." Mrs. 
General Greene, who was Catherine Little- 
field, of Block Island, like Mrs. Knox shared 
with her husband the perils and hardships of 
campaign life. Man)^ brilliant qualities earned 
for her high distinction and wide influence ; 
and she is specially remembered from the 
fact that it was at her house in Georgia, and 
under her encouragement, that Eli Whitney 
produced his famous cotton-gin. With pecu- 
liar admiration one looks back to such a wo- 
man as Mrs. Mary Draper of Dedham, in 
Massachusetts, who was a whole ** relief com- 
mittee " in herself, and converted her own 
premises into a perfect "soldiers' rest." At 
the outbreak of the war, when the patriots of 
New England were hastening to arms, she 
organized her household into a bakery, put 
her huge ovens in full blast, spread a long 
table by the road-side, and kept it bounteously 
supplied with pans of bread and cheese and 



l8o REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

tubs of cider ; so, day after day, supplying 
the needs of hungry men, as they marched by 
on the way to Boston. 

There is one woman of the Revolutionary 
times whose name we hold in most reverent 
remembrance : this was the mother of Wash- 
ington. No portrait of her is in existence ; 
and her only memoir is that by G. W. P. Cus- 
tis, which Mrs. Ellet has effectively epito- 
mized. Her moral nature was predominant, 
but her intellectual strength gave her the 
right to rule in her world, while simplicity and 
sweetness unfailing characterized her manner 
and her spirit. Her tastes were domestic, 
her habits were industrious and exact, and 
her piety consecrated a secluded spot among 
the rocks and trees near her house as her 
place of prayer. 

To the women of the Revolution, as a class, 
sentiment and custom did not allow the posi- 
tions of public service which in a measure they 
now enjoy ; but no patriotism could be more 
ardent, no courage firmer, no spirit of sacri- 
fice heartier than was theirs. They were the 
heroines of many serious frolics, the accounts 



NOTABLE MEN AND WOMEN. l8l 

of which are important contributions to the 
inner history of the times. Thus, once at a 
quilting-bee at Kinderhook, N.Y., the only 
young man in the company ventured some 
aspersions upon the Congress, in session at 
the time in Philadelphia, and continued the 
offence until the girls could brook it no longer. 
Laying hold of him with one consent, they 
stripped him to the waist, coated him with 
molasses in lieu of tar, flecked him with 
flag-down in lieu of feathers, and then let him 
go. And one of these girls was a parson's 
daughter ! The young ladies of Amelia 
County, Virginia, moved by the emergency of 
their country, entered into a compact " not to 
receive the addresses of any person, be his 
circumstances or situation in life what they 
will, unless he has served in the American 
armies long enough to prove by his valor that 
he is deserving of their love." 

The patriotic fervor of a daughter of the 
Revolutionary period is well illustrated by a 
letter which is printed in the " Continental 
Journal," of Sept. 25, 1777. It was written 
by a young lady of sixteen to her brother 



1 82 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

at Fort Washington, and, falling into the 
hands of an officer, so pleased him by its 
noble tenor that he gave out copies of it for 
publication. It is as follows : — 

Bo/lon, 22,d Sept., iTjd. 
Dear Billy, — 

What news ? would be the firft queftion you'd alk 
could I fee you. I anfwer by way of letter, none at all. 
The next is, how do you do ? I anfwer very well ; 
how do you do ? Methinks I hear your comparatively 
feeble voice famed for the noife of battle ; Betfy, I am 
well, happy accents they are — I fancy I indulge a 
pleafing reverie that you are now flaking the foe ; how 
happy ihould I be, to hear that my brother was thS 
firfb who rufhed on to defperate battle. Never let the 
name of raife a blufli on his fifter's cheek ; re- 
member from me that I am your fifler, that my hap- 
pinefs depends on your good behaviour. Return 
vi6lorious, or return no more. Rather than hear that 
you was a coward, or a timid afferter of the rights of 
your Country; I had rather hear that leaden death had 
difmantled your fpirited foul, and fent it murmuring to 
the fkies. I had rather be obli<red to ftalk the mangled 
heaps with the firmnefs of a grieved daughter of 
liberty, in fearch of the crimfon'd corps of my brother, 
to wafh his wounds with my tears, confcious that he 
was fighting for me, for himfelf, for his country — I'd 
call the wondering fpectators, and fhew your corps, 



NOTABLE MEN AND WOMEN. 1 83 

and tell them with aboafting fmile this was my brother. 
But Hop, I'll go no further — I hope you will fight and 
have an opportunity of feeing the ruin of your Britifh 
foes : your hands ftained with blood of Englifh tyrants, 
fhall procure you a lauriel — that time fliall never brufh 
from your temples. / am, &^c. 

Often a like spirit with the foregoing 
showed itself in more practical ways, as in 
the case of Emily Geiger, a young South Car- 
olinian maiden, not more than eighteen years 
of age, who under perilous circumstances vol- 
unteered to carry a letter from General Greene 
to General Sumter. Greene, fearing that the 
girl might lose the letter, first communicated 
its contents to her, and she then set forth 
upon her expedition, mounted on a fleet horse. 
On the second day, she was intercepted by 
the enemy's scouts, suspected, taken to a 
neighboring house, and a woman sent for to 
search her person. While the woman was 
coming, she ate up her letter piece by piece ; 
and the search, of course, was fruitless. She 
was released, and proceeding on her way 
reached her destination in safety, and commu- 
nicated her errand. 



1 84 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 



XII. 
ODDS AND ENDS. 

It only remains, to complete the design of 
these pages, to set down here by themselves 
a few items of interest which have not found 
an orderly admission in an earlier place. 

As the eye passes from the illustrious in- 
dividuals of Revolutionary times, it may well 
rest for a moment upon some of the distin- 
guished families whose broad estates embel- 
lished the landscape, and whose successive 
generations have played so important parts 
in the national history. Taking the country 
through, the aristocratic idea was far more 
dominant then than now. Many scions of 
old English households had been transplanted 
to the American soil, in the hope of finding 
room for freer and fuller growth ; and the 
immense domains to be had almost for the 
asking tempted an ambition and encouraged 



ODDS AND ENDS. 1 85 

a taste which found satisfaction in a life laid 
out only on the most elaborate scale. The 
inequalities of the old society have been 
evened up in these latter days, and we look 
almost in vain for those great and proud fami- 
lies whose names a hundred years ago gave 
distinction to the Colonies they had helped to 
settle and develop. These old and honorable 
names were especially prominent at the South. 
Among them were the Izards and Draytons 
of South Carolina, the eminent and influential 
William Henry Drayton being the foremost 
representative of the latter, though at the 
time of his death, in 1779, he had attained 
the age of but thirty-seven years. Drayton 
Hall, the family seat, was an imposing man- 
sion in the English style, fronting on the 
Ashley River, built some thirty years before 
the Revolution at a cost of ^90,000. It was 
of brick, much of its material having been 
imported from England, and was largely fin- 
ished within in panel and wainscot of solid 
mahogany. 

Another representative family of this class 
is found in the Fairfaxes, who traced their 



1 86 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

descent through a long Une of EngUsh lords, 
back to the times before the Conquest. Their 
vast estates were in Virginia ; their seat, on 
the banks of the Potomac, a few miles below 
Mount Vernon, was named " Belvoir ; " and 
Lord Thomas Fairfax was the friend anc' 
early patron of Washington. 

Through all the fabric of Revolutionary 
events there ran the thread of a peculiar 
misery in the prevalence of. the small-pox, 
which dread malady had not yet found its 
match in the treatment of vaccination. Not 
only the ranks of the army, but the homes of 
the people, were invaded by this loathsome 
visitor, and its devastations were terrible. 
Its victims were counted by thousands, and 
the gloomy fears of pestilence intensified the 
ordinary horrors of war. Nevertheless, the 
superstitions which prevailed, and the straits 
to which the sufferers were driven, gave oc- 
casion for some humorous situations. Thus, 
a traveller to the southward mentions that at 
one place he found a woman sitting wrapped 
in blankets, by a roaring fire, and making a 



ODDS AND ENDS. 1 8/ 

night of it in that fashion ; her intent being 
*' to sweat out the small-pox." A far funnier 
thing than this must have been a '* small-pox 
party," a glimpse of which is given in this 
extract of a letter from one Joseph Barrell, 
quoted by Mr. Drake from Brewster's History 
of Portsmouth : * — 

Mr. Storer has invited Mr. Martin to take the 
small-pox at his house : if Mrs. Wentworth desires to 
get rid of her pears in the same way, we will accommo- 
date her in the best way we can. I've several friends 
that I've invited, and none of them will be more wel- 
come than Mrs. W. 

Duelling, though prohibited by law, was 
sustained to a considerable degree by public 
sentiment ; and several notable instances of 
the now detested practice were afforded dur- 
ing the Revolution. General Charles Lee was 
wounded in a duel with Colonel John Laurens, 
of Washington's staff, who gave the challenge 
because of some aspersions which he had cast 
upon the Commander-in-chief. General Con- 
way, the instigator of the conspiracy against 
Washington, known as the " Conway Cabal," 

* Old Landmarks, p. 3S9. 



1 88 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

was wounded in a duel with General Cadwal- 
ader, on the 4th of July, 1778. And a year 
earlier Button Gwinnett, one of the signers 
of the Declaration, was killed in a duel with 
General Mcintosh. 

Revolutionary times were without an " Old 
Probabilities," but could well have kept him 
in occupation if he had been on the ground, 
provided with the necessary instruments for 
gathering his reports and despatching them. 
The winter of 1772-73 was a very mild one. 
In Falmouth, Me., January 27th was set 
down as a summer day, and no snow fell 
there until well into February. The winter 
of 1774-75 was equally remarkable for its 
mildness, the weather being so warm at New 
York in February that boys went into the 
river to swim. For such deficiencies in cold, 
however, the winter of 1779-80 made full 
amends. This was long remembered for its 
severity, and earned the name of " the hard 
winter." The country was buried beneath a 
mass of snow that at times rendered the roads 
utterly impassable, and Long Island Sound 



ODDS AND ENDS. 1 89 

was almost entirely frozen over. Persons 
crossed from Long Island to the Connecticut 
shore on the ice, and wood was brought from 
the same quarter to New York in sleighs. 

What the clerk of the weather would have 
thought of the " Dark Day," the 19th of May in 
the same year, 1780, it is difficult to say. The 
phenomicnon was a most astonishing one. It 
must have been really appalling. The day 
was a Friday, too ! For several days previous 
the air had been uncommonly obscured, so that 
the sun and moon were given a reddish hue. 
Early on this Friday morning, clouds began 
to gather in a way to portend rain, and at 
eleven o'clock the darkness had become so 
intense as to excite remark and prompt spe- 
cial observation. We will let a writer in the 
" Country Journal," of May 20, finish the 
story : — 

At half-paft eleven, in a room with three windows, 
twenty-four panes each, all opened toward the fouth-eaft 
and fouth, large print could not be read by perfons of 
good eyes. About twelve o'clock, the windows being 
Itill open, a candle caft a fhade fo well defined on the 



1 90 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

wall, as that profiles were taken with as much eafe as 
they could have been in the night. About one o'clock, 
a glimpfe of light, which had continued till this time in 
the eart, fhut in, and the darknefs was greater than it 
had been for afiy time before. Between one and two 
o'clock, the wind at the weft frefhened a little, and a 
glimpfe of light appeared in that quarter. We dined 
about two, the windows all open, and two candles 
burning on the table. In this time of the greateft 
darknefs, the dunghill fowls went to their rooft ; cocks 
crowed in anfwer to each other, as they commonly do 
in the night; wood-cocks, which are night birds, whif- 
tled as they do only in the dark; frogs peeped; in 
fhort, there was the appearance of midnight at noon- 
day. About three o'clock the light in the weft in- 
creafed, the motion of the clouds more thick, their 
color higher and more bralTy than at any time before ; 
there appeared to be quick flaflies or corufcations, not 
unlike the aurora borealis. Between three and four 
o'clock we were out and perceived a ftrong, footy 
fmell ; fome of the company were confident a chimney 
in the neighbourhood muft be burning ; others con- 
je6lured the fmell was more like that of burned leaves. 
About half-paft four, our company, which had palled 
an unexpe6led night very cheerfully together, broke 
up. I will now give you what I noticed afterwards. I 
found the people at the tavern near by much agitated. 
Among other things which gave them much furprife, 
they mentioned the ftrange appearance and fmell of 
the rain water, which they had faved in tubs. Upon 



ODDS AND ENDS. 191 

examining the water, I found a flight fcum over it, 
which, rubbing between my thumb and finger, I found 
to be nothing but the black afhes of burnt leaves. . . . 
The vaft body of fmoke from the woods, which had 
been burning for many days, mixing with the common 
exhalations from the earth and water, and condenfed 
by the a6lion of winds from oppofite points, may, 
perhaps, be fufiicient caufes to produce the furprifing 
darknefs. The wind in the evening paiTed round fur- 
ther north, where a black cloud lay, and gave us 
reafon to expeft a fudden guft from that quarter. The 
wind brought that body of fmoke and vapour over us, in 
the evening, (at Salem, Maflachufetts,) and perhaps it 
never was darker fince the Children of Ifrael left the 
houfe of bondage. This grofs darknefs held till about 
one o'clock, although the moon had fulled but the day 
before. Between one and two the wind frefhened up 
at north-eaft, and drove the fmoke and clouds away, 
which had given dillrefs to thoufands, and alarmed 
the brute creation. 

And now let us in imagination transport 
ourselves back to that Fourth of July, 1776, 
which is the supreme point of the period we 
have been surveying, and, turning the eye 
forward to that future which has become our 
past, pick out one by one some successive 
events of a familiar kind which have con- 
tributed to the century's progress ; so the 



192 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

better to realize the remoteness of these 
Revolutionary times. 

July 4th, 1776: it is yet eight days before 
Captain Cook is to set sail from Plymouth, 
England, on that voyage of exploration, one 
achievement of which is to be the disciovery, 
two years later, of the Sandwich Islands. A 
month and more of life the historian Hume 
has before him. Rousseau, Linnaeus, and 
Garrick have nearly two years more ; Sir 
William Blackstone, nearly four ; and Samuel 
Johnson, eight. Napoleon Bonaparte is a boy 
of seven : thirty-nine years of varied discipline, 
adventure, and achievement await him before 
his career shall terminate at Waterloo. Walter 
Scott, who is to be Napoleon's biographer, 
is two years his junior ; but Irving, who 
forty years later is to visit Scott at Abbots- 
ford, is not yet born, nor will he be these 
seven years. It is eighteen years yet to 
the birth of Bryant, twenty-seven to that of 
Emerson, thirty-one to Longfellow's, thirty- 
three to Abraham Lincoln's. 

Only by slow steps are new States of 
America to join themselves to the original 



ODDS AND ENDS. I93 

thirteen. Vermont, the first, will not present 
herself yet for fifteen years ; Kentucky, only 
after sixteen ; Tennessee, in twenty ; Ohio, in 
twenty-six; Louisiana, in thirty-six; Indiana, 
in forty ; Mississippi, in forty-one ; Illinois, in 
forty-two; Alabama, in forty-three ; Maine, in 
forty-four ; Missouri, in forty- five ; Arkansas, 
in sixty ; Michigan, in sixty -one ; Florida and 
Texas, sixty-seven ; Iowa, seventy ; Wisconsin, 
seventy-two; California, seventy-four; Minne- 
sota, eighty-two ; Oregon, eighty-three ; Kan- 
sas, eighty-five; West Virginia, eighty-seven; 
Nevada, eighty-eight ; Nebraska, ninety-one. 

Equally far in the future are many of the 
colleges which by 1876 are to constitute so 
conspicuous a part of the furnishing of the 
land. It is seventeen years to the founding 
of Williams ; twenty-two to that of Bowdoin ; 
forty-five to that of Amherst ; forty-seven to 
that of Trinity ; fifty-seven to that of Oberlin ; 
sixty-five to that of the University of Michi- 
gan ; ninety-two to that of Cornell University. 

In the world of useful arts, the steam-en crine 
is a new invention, and has not yet passed out 
of the experimental stage. Steam navigation, 

13 



194 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

to the popular mind, is a chimera, and seven 
years must elapse before Fitch will first move 
his vessel by this new motive power on the 
Delaware ; thirty-one, before Fulton will es- 
tablish *' The Clermont " as a regular steam 
packet between New York and Albany ; forty- 
three, before " The Savannah " is to earn the 
distinction of being the first steamship to 
cross the great and wide sea. George Ste- 
phenson, who, thirty-eight years hence, is to 
construct in England his -first locomotive 
engine, is not yet born ; and America has to 
wait yet half a century before it can witness 
the operation of its first railroad, that from 
the granite quarries at Quincy to tide-water. 
A longer time still by several years must the 
people continue to strike their flint and steel, 
before lighting their fires with " lucifer " 
matches. 

The cotton-gin is seventeen years in the 
future ; illuminating gas, forty-six ; steel pens, 
the same ; india rubber over-shoes, fifty; ihe 
daguerreotype, sixty-four ; the telegraph, sixty- 
eight ; and the sewing-machine, seventy. 

Gentlemen will wear short clothes twenty 



ODDS AND ENDS. I95 

years longer, before putting on trousers ; and 
eat with steel forks for fifty, before exchang- 
ing them for forks of silver. 

Not for twenty years yet is Jenner to be- 
gin his struggle for the introduction of vacci- 
nation ; and it must be ten years more before 
this his beneficent theory shall have won its 
triumph over the combined forces of super- 
stition and bigotry. For sixty years longer 
must the surgeon's patient suffer under the 
operating-knife, before the inhalation of ether 
can be resorted to for the deadening of his 
sensibilities. It will be thirty-six years before 
the experimenting American will succeed in 
getting anthracite coal to burn, sixty before 
he will arm himself with a revolver, and sixty- 
one before he will see a steam-vessel pro- 
pelled by a screw. Not for fifty years will 
an " iron-clad " afloat demonstrate the possi- 
biUty of a revolution in naval architecture ; 
not for seventy-five will petroleum freely 
supersede sperm oil and candles. 

For forty years longer the American printer 
is to work with a hand-press, though in some- 
thing less than that time he will adopt the 



196 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

process of stereotyping ; but it will be seventy- 
five years before he will make the improve- 
ment of electrotyping, and eighty or more 
before he will apply the new method to the 
printing of newspapers. After the lapse of 
about this same time, he will amuse himself 
with machines for setting up and distributing 
type, and just a little later will pause with in- 
terest before a shop window to see a young 
lady operate a " type-writer." But in less 
than fifty years he will have received from 
Europe the art of lithography. 

Nearly ninety years must pass before the 
travelling American can take his seat amid 
the luxuries of a Pullman car, and more than 
ninety before he can enter upon his comfort- 
able journey in it, with meals by day and 
sleep by night, across the continent ; while, in 
the street cars of the cities, only the closing 
years of the century will resound to the mel- 
low ring with which the conductor of uncer- 
tain integrity signifies his obedience to the 
direction to 

" Punch in the presence of the passenjare." 

Finally, to the best of this present writer's 



ODDS AND ENDS. l()7 

knowledge and belief, the very last year of all 
the busy and eventful one hundred must come 
before an inquiring reader can find in any 
such snug compass as that in which this 
little book has attempted to present it, a bird's- 
eye view of the things that were at the be- 
ginning. 



APPENDIX. 



The materials of this book have been derived 
mainly from the following sources : — 

Bancroft's History of the United States. 

Lossin2:'s Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution. 

Moore's Diary of the Revolution. 

Hudson's Journalism in the United States. 

Familiar Letters of John Adams and his Wife. 

Drake's Old Landmarks of Boston. 

Memoir of Josiah Quincy, Jr. 

Breed's Presbyterians and the Revolution. 

Patterson's Historical Sketch of the Synod of Phila- 
delphia. 

Mrs. EUet's The Women of the American Revolution. 

Timlow's Sketches of Southington, Conn. 

Boston Gazette, 1773-1775. 

New England Chronicle, 1775-1776. 

Continental Journal, 1777. 

Crosby's First Half-Century of Dartmouth College. 

Stevens's Address on Old New York before the New 
York Historical Society. 

Duycki nek's Cyclopedia of American Literature. 

Manuscripts and private memorials. 



200 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

Those who desire to go further in this explora- 
tion of Revolutionary times will find important 
helps among the works grouped below. Any 
thing like completeness in such a list is of course 
out of the question here ; and the reader should 
be frankly warned that many of the books named 
are scarce, and some excessively rare ; while 
comparatively few are to be found in public 
libraries. The titles are in most cases abbreviated, 
and the names of authors are in italics. 

Natural and Civil History of the French Dominions 
in North and South America. London: 1760. 

Account of North America. London: 1775. 

Historical, Geographical, Commercial, and Philosophi- 
cal View of United States. Winterbotham, New 
York: 1796. 

Topographical Description of the Western Territory 

of North America. Iinlay. New York: 1793. 
Present Political State of Massachusetts Bay and 

Town of Boston. New York : 1775. 
History of New Hampshire Churches. Lawrence, 

Claremont: 1857. 
Thirty Days in New Jersey Ninety Years Ago. 

(1776-77). Haven. Trenton: 1867. 
Papers Relating to the [Episcopal] Church in Virginia. 

Peny. Privately printed. 1870. 
Old Churches, Ministers, and Families of Virginia. 

Meade. Philadelphia: 1857. 



APPENDIX. 201 



Carolina in the Olden Time. By the author of "Our 

Forefathers." 
Narrative of Col. David Fanning of Adventures in 

North Carolina, from 1775 to 1783. Richmond, 

Va. : 1861. 
Revolutionary History of North Carolina. Hawks, 

Swain, and Graha^n. Raleigh: 1853. 
Memoirs of the Revolution as relating to South Caro- 
lina. Drayton. Charleston, S.C. : 1821. 
Memoirs of the Early Settlers of Ohio, with Incidents 

and Occurrences in 1775. Hildreth. Cincinnati: 

1852. 



History of Philadelphia. Westcott. 

Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania in the Olden 

Time. Watson. Philadelphia : 1845. 
History of Independence Hall, with Biographies of the 

Signers, Historical Sketches, etc. Belisle. Phil- 
adelphia : 1859. 
New York City during the Revolution. Privately 

printed. New York: 1851. 
Boston in the Colonial Times (Sir C. H. Frankland). 

Nason. Albany : 1865. 
West Cambridge on the 19th of April, 1775. Smith. 

Boston: 1864. 
Richmond in By-gone Days. Richmond, Va. : 1856. 
Letters of Eliza Wilkinson during the Invasion and 

Possession of Charleston, S.C, by the British. 

Gihnan. New York : 1839. 



202 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

Law's Colonial History of Vincennes. Vincennes : 

1858. 
Annals of San Francisco. Soule and others. New 

York: 1855. 



New Travels in the United States in 1788. J. P. De 

W. Brissot. London : 1 794. 
Travels through the Interior Parts of North America 

in 1766-68. Carver. London: 1778. 
Travels in the Interior inhabited Parts of North 

America in 1791-92. Campbell. Edinburgh : 

1793- 
Travels through the Middle Settlements in North 

America in 1759-60. Burnaby. London: 1775. 
Adventures of Capt. Matthew Phelps in Two Voyages 

from Connecticut to the River Mississippi, 1773- 

1780. Haswell. Bennington : 1802. 
Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian 

Territories between 1760-76. Henry. New 

York: 1809.. 
Travels through the United States in 1796, '97. Roch- 

foucatild. London : 1 799. 
Tour in United States of America, S7nyth. Lon- 
don: 1784. 
Travel through the States of North America. Weld. 

London : 1799. 
Travels in North America in 1780-82. Chastellux. 

London: 1787. 



APPENDIX, 203 



Letters from an American Farmer describing certain 
Provincial Situations, Manners, and Customs, St. 
John. London : 1783. 

A Journal of Two Visits to Indiana, West of the River 
Ohio, in 1772-73. Jones. New York : 1875. 

Military Journal during the American Revolutionary 
War, 1775-83. Thacher. Boston: 1823. 

Memoirs of an American Lady. Mrs. Grant, Lon- 
don : 1809. 

Letters from America, Historical and Descriptive. 
Eddis. London: 1792. 

Letters and Memoirs. Mad. Riedesel. New York : 
1827. 

Private Journal kept during a Portion of the Revolu- 
tionary War. Philadelphia: 1836. 



Baptists and the American Revolution. Catkcart. 

Richmond: 1876, 
The Pulpit of the American Revolution. Thornton. 

Boston : i860. 
Chaplains and Clergy of the Revolution. Headley. 
History of Music in New England. Hood. Boston : 

1846. 
History of Printing in America. Thomas. Worcester : 

1810. 
Songs and Ballads of the Revolution. Moore. New 

York: 1856. 
Domestic History of the American Revolution. Ellet. 



204 REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. 

Biographical Sketches of Loyalists. Sabine. Boston : 

1864. 
The Youth of Jefferson ; or, A Chronicle of College 

Scraps at Williamsburg in Virginia, 1794. New 

York: 1854. 
Sketch of John S. Copley. Perkins. Cambridge: 1873. 
Life and Times of Washington. Sehroeder. 



Old New England Traits. Lunt. Boston 



'& 



Our Forefathers : Their Homes and Churches. By 
the author of " Carolina in the Olden Time." 
Charleston: i860. 



Anecdotes of the Revolutionary War in America, with 
Sketches of Character, etc., etc. Garden. Charles- 
ton, S.C. : 1822-28. • Brooklyn: 1865. 

Anecdotes of the American Revolution. New York : 

1844. 
Reminiscences of the Revolution. Albany: 1833. 
Principles and Acts of the Revolution in America. 

Niles. Baltimore: 1822. 



Local histories in great number. 

Collections of the several Historical Societies. 



American Military Pocket Atlas of the British Col- 
onies. London: 1776. 
The American Geography. Morse. Boston: 1789. 



INDEX, 



Adams, Hannah, 123. 

Adams, John, 22, 25, 60, 63, 93, 114, 

120, 165, i6g, 174. 
Adams, Samuel, 22, 114, 149, 175. 
Aitkin, Robert, 121. 
Albany, N.Y., 27, 28, 51. 
Allen, Ethan, 115. 
Amboy, N.J., 13. 
Amusements. 72-77. 
Annapolis, Md., 13, 14, 41. 
Apthorps, The, 31. 
Architecture, 37, 82. 
Arnold, Benedict, 178. 
Auchmuty, Dr., 149. 
Augusta, Ga., 14, 43. 

Balls, 76-78. 

Baltimore, Md., 14, 20, 41, 42, 52, 

82. 
Baptists, 145, 146. 
Barlow, Joel, 119. 
Bartram, John, 16, 116. 
Bartram, William, 116. 
Bath, N.C.. 47. 
"Battle of the Kegs," 115. 
Bayards, The, 31. 
Beaufort, S.C., 50. 
Belknap, Dr. Jeremy, 122. 
Bethlehem, Pa., 25, 46. 
Bland, Richard, 122. 
Bland, Theodoric, 122. 
Bleecker, Mrs. Ann Eliza, 118. 
Book-store, An old, 128. 
Boone, Daniel, 15. 
Boston, Mass., 13, 19, 28, 33-40, 51, 

52, 53? 54. 55j 62) 73, 80, 120, 136, 

150, 167. 
Boston Gazette, 52, 72, 88, 129, 130, 
Brackenridge, Hugh Henry, 121. 



Burr, Aaron, 178. 

Byles, Mather, 150. 

Burgoyne's surrender, Tidings of, 



Cadwalader, Gen., 1S8. 
Caldwell, Rev. James, 149. 
Cambridge, Mass., 14, 41, 150, 164. 
Carpenters' Hall, Philadelphia, 21. 
Carroll, Charles, 42, 176. 
Charleston, S.C, 13, 14, 20, 42, 45, 

4S, 53, 55- 
Chase, Samuel, 42, 176. 
Chauncy, Dr. Charles, 150. 
Children, Habits of, 85. 
Church, Dr. Benjamin, 122. 
Churches, 25, 29, 36, 37, 145-160. 
Cities, The five prominent, 19. 
Civilians of eminence, 174-178. 
Clergy, The, 147-152. 
Coffee-houses, 30, 31. 
Colleges, 25, 29, 41, 102-111, 148, 

150, 163. 
Colonies, The thirteen original, 13. 
"Common Sense," 121, 143. 
Concert, Programme of a, 72. 
Concord, Mass., 164. 
Congregationalists, 145. 
Congress, 22, 23, 109-ni, 149, 175, 

176. 
Connecticut, 13, 16, 46, 147. 
Continental Journal, 56, 181. 
Conway, Gen., 187. 
Cooper, Rev. Dr. Samuel, 150. 
Copley, John S., 42, 168, 169. 
Cornwallis, 20. 
Country Journal, 189. 
Courtship of Matthew Griswold, 86. 



2o6 



INDEX. 



"Dark Day" of 1780, 189-191. 
Declaration of Independence, 17, 

23, 42, i7S> 176, 188. 
De Kalb, 174. 
De Lanceys, The, 31. 
Delaware, 13. 
Delaware River, 51. 
Detroit, 12, 17. 
Dickinson, John, 115, 176. 
Dorchester, Mass., 16. 
Dorchester, S.C., 16, 159. 
Draper, Mrs. Mary, 179. 
Draytons, The, 185. 
Dress, 60-71. 

Duche, Rev. Jacob, 115, 149. 
Duelling, 1S7. 
Duffield, Dr., 149. 
Du Simiti^re, 117. 
Dutch Reformed, The, 145. 
Dutch, The, 27, 46, 158- 
Dwight, Rev. Timothy, 118, 119, 

130. 

Easton, Pa., 27. 

East Windsor, Conn., 78. 

Edenton, N.C, 47. 

Emmons, Rev. Dr., 87, 112, 115, 

120, 151. 
Engravers, 167. 
Episcopalians, 145, 146, 147, 149, 

157- 
Essex Gazette, 94. 
Euphrates, Pa., 47. 
Evans, Nathaniel, 122. 
Exeter, N.H., 13, 40. 



Fairfaxes. The, 185, 186. 

Falmouth, Me., 14, 40, 53, 93, 185. 

Families of distinction, 31, 184-186. 

Farm, A model. 161, 162. 

Farmer's life, The, 162, 163. 

Farmington, Conn., 95. 

Florida, 16. 

Flucker, Thomas, 176. 

" Flying machine," 52. 

Fourth of July, 1776, prospect from, 

191-197. 
Franklin, Benjamin, 94, 174. 
Franklin, William, 54, 55. 
Freneau, 117, 118. 
Funeral customs, 89. 



Future, view of from 4th of July, 
1776, 191-197. 

Gadsden, Christopher, 22, 177. 
Gaine's Mercury, 73. 
Gates, Gen. Horatio, 173. 
Geiger, Emily, 183. 
Germantown, Pa., 25, 46. 
Georgetown, Md., 41. 
Georgia, 13, 16, 49, 179. 
German Reformed, 145. 
Germans, The, 46. 
Godfrey, Thomas, 123. 
Governments, Forms of, 18. 
Graydon, Alexander, 118. 
Greene, Gen. Nathaniel, 173, 183. 
Greene, Mrs. Gen., 179. 
Griswold, Matthew, Courtship of, 

86. 
Gwinnett, Button, 176, 187. 

Hamilton, Alexander, 175. 
Hancock House, The 38-40. 
Hancock, John, 87, 175. 
Hartford, Conn., 13, 14, 41, 461 51. 
Henry, Patrick, 22, 177. 
Hopkinson, Francis, 115, 121. 
House, Interior of, 83. 
Hudson River, 82. 
Humphreys, David, 119. 

Independence Hall, 23. 

Indiana, 16. 

Indian tribes, 12, 17. 

Industrial interests, i6r. 

Inventory in a New Hampshire 

family, 98. 
Isles of Shoals, 14. 
Izards, The, 185. 

Jay, John, 22, 166. 
Jefferson, Thomas, 114, 174. 
Johnston's Hall, 82. 
Johnstown, N.Y., 82. 
Jones, Samuel, 166. 
Journalism, 132-143. 

KiNDERHOOK, N.Y., 187, 

Kitchen, Scene in, 84. 
Knox, Gen. Henry, 173. 
Knox, Mrs. Gen., 178. 
Kosciuszko, 174. 



INDEX. 



207 



Lafayette, 76, 77, 174. 

Lake George, 51. 

Lancaster, Pa., 26, 46, 47. 

Langdon, Dr., 150. 

Laurens, Col. John, 187. 

Lawyers, 165-167. 

Lee, Gen. Charles, 173, 187. 

Lee, Richard Henry, 176. 

Libraries, 127-129. 

Linn, Rev. William, 118. 

Littlefield, Catherine Mrs. Gen. 

Greene), 179. 
Livingstons, The, 31, 166, 175. 
Louisiana, 16. 
Lutherans, 27, 145. 

Mails, 54-57. 
Maine, 12, 14, 40, 53. 
Manufactures, 164. 
Marblehead, Mass., 40. 
Maryland, 13, 15, 16, 41, 47. 
Marriage notices, 87, 88. 
Massachusetts, 12, 13, 15, 16, 53, 

147, 178. 
Meeting-houses, 153. 
Men of the Revolution, 171-178. 
Methodists, 145, 146. 
"M^Fingal," 119. 
Minister, call and settlement of, 152. 
Mississippi River and Valley, 12, 44. 
Mohawk Valley, The, 15, 51. 
Money system, 100. 
Montgomery, Gen., 161, 173. 
Morality, 63. 

Morris, Gouverneur, 118. 
Morris, Robert, 176, 
Morrises, The, 31. 
Morristown, N.J., 46, 157. 
Music in the churches, 154. 

Newark, N.J., 27. 

Newbern, N.C., 13, 14, 48. 

Newburyport, Mass., 52. 

Newcastle, Del., 13, 14. 

New England Chronicle, 64, 130, 

164. 
New England life and trait«, 60, 61, 

81, 146, i6i, 179. 
New Hampshire, 12, 13, 14, 15, 51. 
New Haven, Conn., 13, 41, 46, 51, 

150. [147. 

New Jersey, 13, 14, 15, 16, 51, 82, 



New Orleans, 44. 

Newport, R.I., 13, 41. 

Newspapers, 132-143. 

New York, City of, 13, 27, 33, 51, 

52, 53, 54, 55,62, 73, 80, 136, 188. 
New York Gazette, 87, 100. 
New York, State of, 12, 13, 15, 82. 
Norfolk. Va , 14. 
North Carolina, 13, 15, 16, 47, 61, 

82, 166. 

Officers of the Revolution, 171- 

174. 
Ohio, 16. 
Otis, James, 115. 

Paca, William, 42. 
Paine, Thomas, 121. 
Painters, 167-170. 
Peale, Charles W., 168. 
Peale, Rembrandt, 168. 
Pennsylvania, 13, 16, 21, 61, 147. 
Pennsylvania Gazette, 55. 
Pennsylvania Magazine, 121. 
Pennsylvania, University of, 25. 
Philadelphia, Pa., 13, 20-25, 26, 27, 

46, 51, 52, 55, 80, 94, 102, 117, 

121, 147, 166, 169, 177. 
Piercy, Rev. Mr., 44. 
Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth, 177. 
Pittsburg, Pa., 12, 27. 
Plymouth, Mass., 14. 
Political parties, 62. 
Population in 1776, 59. 
Portsmouth, N. H., 14, 40, 187. 
Post-office, The, 57. 
Presbyterians, 16, 145, 146, 158. 
Prices, 95-100. 
Princeton, N.J., 29, 148. 
Products of the several States, 16. 
Providence, R. L, 13, 14, 41, 45, 51, 
Pulaski, 174. 
Putnam, Gen. Israel, 173. 

Quakers in Philadelphia, 21. 
Quincy, Josiah, Jr., 53, 75, 

Rags, Scarcity of, 140, 141. 
Reading, Penn., 14, 46. 
Reamstown, Pa., 46. 
Revere, Paul, 107. 
Rhode Island, 13, 15, 45, 147. 



208 



INDEX. 



Richmond, Va., 51. 
Rittenhouse. David, 177. 
Roads, 51. 
Rodney, Caesar, 176. 
Roman Catholics, 17, 145, 146. 
Romans, Bernard, 116. 
Rush, Dr. Benjamin, 102, 121. 
Rutledge, Edward, 22, 176. 
Rutledge, John, 22. 

Sabba'-Day Houses. 156. 

San Francisco, Mission of, 17. 

Salem, Mass., 40, 94. 

Savannah, Ga., 13, 14, 43. 

Schools, Professional, 112. 

School, A morninc, 112. 

Schuyler, Gen. Philip, 173. 

Seabury, Dr., 140- 

Sectional contrasts, 59-61. 

Sewall, Jonathan M., 122. 

Sherman. Roger, 175. 

Signers of the Declaration, 42, 115. 

Slavery, 6S. 

Small-pox, 186, 187. 

Smibert, 169. 

South Carolina, 13, 14, 15, 16, 61, 

159, 185. 
Southern traits, 61. 
Spanish, The, 44. 
Springfield, I\Iass., 41, 51. 
Stage-coach, 52. 53. 
Stark, Gen. John, 173. 
.States, Governments of, 18. 
States, Products of, 16. 
Steuben, Baron, 174. 
Stiles, Dr., 115, 150. 
Stillman, Dr., 150. 
St. Lawrence River, 54. 
St. Louis, Mo., 16. 
Stone, Thomas, 42. 
Store- Interior of a, 164. 
Stuart, Gilbert, 169. 
Stuyvesants, The, 31. 
Sumter, Gen., 1S3. 
Sullivan, Gen. John, 173. 

Taverns, 30. 
Theatre, 73, 76. 
Thomas, Isaiah, 123. 



Thompson, Charles, 116, 176. 
Thursday Lecture in Boston, 157. 
Tories and Whigs, 62. 
Travel, 45-54- 

Trumbull, John, the painter, 169. 
I'rumbull, John, the poet, 119. 
Trumbull, Jonathan, 117, 177. 

United States Magazine, 121. 
Universalists, 147. 

Vaughan, John, 23. 

Vermont, 12. 

Vincennes, Ind., 16. 

Virginia, 13. 14, 15, 16, 47, 51, 61, 

82, 159, 181, 186. 
Vredenburg, Jacob, 79. 

Wagfs, 163. 
Waltham, Va., 51. 
Warren, Mercy, 123, 178. 
Ward, Gen. -Artemas, 173. 
Washington, George, 22, 105-107, 

114, 124-127, 157, 159, 169, 172, 

173,. 187. 
Washington, The mother of, 180. 
Watertown, Mass., 41. 
Watson, Elkanah, 45-50. 
Wattses, The, 31. 
Wealth, 62. 

Weather in 1772-80, 188. 
Webster, Noah, 122. 
West, Benjamin, 169. 
West, Colonization of the, 16. 
Westchester. N.Y., 161. 
Wheatley, Phillis. 123-127. 
Whigs and Tories. 62. 
Whitefield, Rev. George, 40, 43. 
Williamsburg, Va., 13 47. 
Wilmington, N.C., 48. 
Witherspoon, Dr.,115. 121, 148,176. 
Wolcott, Oliver, 175. 
Wolcott, Ursula, and Matthew 

Griswold, 86. 
Women of the Revolution, 178-183. 
Wyoming, Valley of, 15, 

York, Me., 165. 
Yorktown, Pa., 27. 






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